


My Friend, the Apocalypse

by cwilliams1794



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Gen, Road Trips, Survival, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-10 13:09:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 39,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10438422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cwilliams1794/pseuds/cwilliams1794
Summary: Rhett and Link are away at a business conference when the zombie apocalypse begins in California. Now, they have to fight against zombies, survivors, and the landscape of the West to make it home to Los Angeles - and save their families.





	1. Chicago

> **Link:** We’re going to have those in the apoc?  
>  **Rhett:** Don’t shorten – we have nothing but time in the apocalypse. You don’t need to come up with abbreviations.  
>  **Link:** I’m just trying to make friends with the apocalypse.  
>  _GMM #986_

 

* * *

 

Rhett and Link were in Chicago for a business conference when the world ended.

It was October. They had co-led a presentation on their experiences founding and running a production company. Their flight back home to Los Angeles was two days away; they'd planned to attend a few seminars after their own presentation. When news of the apocalypse came on Rhett's phone, he thought it was a Halloween prank.

"Check this out," Rhett said to Link - his best friend, business partner, and literal sworn blood brother of thirty years' standing. They were having dinner at a restaurant a few blocks from their hotel. "'Virus Outbreak Causes Zombielike Effects. Virus was first detected at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center' - hey, that's near us."

"I think zombies are overdone, personally," Link said. He poked at his ravioli. Rhett knew Link just wanted to go back to their room and sleep, but for once they were in a walkable city, and Rhett wanted to walk.

He continued to read. "'The California Department of Health has issued a warning for the state.' The whole state? 'Casualty reports continue to come in. AP reports at least fifty dead in LA County.'"

"Probably promoting a movie. Viral marketing's getting crazy."

"It's not just CNN. It's Reuters, the LA Times...wow. Must be some real studio money behind this."

"You know, it's rude to check your phone during dinner," Link said.

"Seriously, dude?" Rhett said, but obediently put his phone away. "Am I missing the chance to get to know you better? At this point I probably know what you're going to say before you even think it."

"Just for that, I'm definitely not putting out tonight."

Rhett snorted. "Fine. I wasn't planning on paying for your meal anyway."

Link laughed just as the ding of an incoming text message sounded from his phone. Rhett just smiled as Link checked it.

"Our seminars tomorrow are canceled," Link said. "And...so is our flight the day after."

"What?"

Rhett became aware of a rising volume in the conversation around them. The other diners in the restaurant were checking their phones for calls, emails, or text messages. The low hum of quiet conversations rose steadily louder.

Rhett made out one word repeated over and over, in every conversation: "Zombies?"

***

Later on, Link would remember every detail of that evening. They were staying at the Four Seasons Hotel. They had dinner at Beatrix Streeterville on North St Clair. He had the Lemon Ravioli. Rhett had the Chicken Wellington...with mushrooms. Rhett loved mushrooms.

Link remembered all this because it was his last taste of normalcy before everything went to hell.

He immediately called his wife, Christy, once they were back at the hotel. She said she was watching the news. It was either all true, or all an awful, awful prank.

By morning it was clear this was no prank.

The news kept coming in. Link spent all his time either watching the news or calling his family, and every hour the news was worse.

_The virus is highly contagious._

_Casualties are now in the thousands._

_For some, the transformation is almost immediate. For others, it can take up to three hours._

_The president has ordered a state of emergency across the entire state._

California was put under quarantine. Link and Rhett checked every day. No flights to LAX. No flights to Orange County. No flights to San Diego.

_All residents are ordered to shelter in place._

_We have reports of outbreaks as far away as Utah and Arizona._

_Oregon and Nevada are now under quarantine._

_The United States Coast Guard has begun positioning resources outside Santa Monica and San Pedro Bay._

No flights to San Francisco. No flights to Oakland. No flights to Sacramento.

"No one can come in or out," Link's wife told him. "The army's in the street...did you see the videos of tanks down Sunset Boulevard?"

"That's good," Link said. "They're there to keep you safe. Just stay where you are..."

He was on the phone with her for hours every day, as if hearing her voice could keep her and their children safe.

His daughter told him school had long been canceled. It was boring to stay in the house all day. She was scared.

"Don't be scared," he told her over Facetime. "Your mom won't let anything happen to you. And I won't either."

He held up his hand to his phone so she could touch his fingers on the screen. _I am two thousand miles away. My family is in danger, and I can't protect them. What kind of man am I?_

_Casualties are now in the tens of thousands._

_The National Guard and federal troops have been mobilized. The Oregon State Defense Force is sheltering large numbers of refugees leaving California._

_The governor has ordered a mandatory evacuation of the following cities: Sacramento, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Long Beach..._

"Are you going?" Link asked Christy.

"We can't," she said. "The order's a joke. There's nowhere for us to go. We can't leave the state. They're telling us to go to the Coliseum."

"What, where the Trojans play?"

"They say it's easier to defend us there."

"If you'll be safer-"

Christy began to cry. "We've lost power, Link. I don't know if I'll be able to talk to you from there...I'm amazed we've been able to talk this long."

Link told her he loved her, as he had every day, every hour, in case they lost electricity, the cell towers fell, and the servers in California all failed. In case it was the last time he spoke to her. "Just do one thing for me," he told her. "Just this, and I'll never ask you for anything else."

"What?"

"Stay alive. Just stay alive."

The day after, there was a media blackout over California.

It was hard to tell what had happened. Reporters speculated that the servers in LA and Palo Alto had suffered some sort of catastrophic failure. Link knew the power had already failed in many parts of the state. Too many people had died, and the zombie-infested plants were too dangerous to fix.

Link heard nothing more from his family. His calls went unanswered.

_Casualties in California are expected to rise_.

Two days after the blackout - two weeks after the apocalypse had started - Link went to visit Rhett in his room.

Link had mostly ignored Rhett over the last week. He'd wanted to spend every moment possible either with his family, or watching the news, or trying to find a way for them to escape. He'd stayed in the hotel's business center and often came back after Rhett had gone to bed. In his heart, Link knew Rhett didn't want him around anyway. Rhett always wanted to be alone when things got difficult.

Link's first impression, when he entered the room, was that Rhett had died.

Rhett was sitting at the table by the window. His eyes were open. But he was paler than Link had ever seen him, and his eyes were totally lifeless. He was staring off into nothing.

Link saw, too, that Rhett's knuckles were bruised and bloody.

"What happened?"

Rhett seemed startled by Link's voice. "Oh," he said, and looked at his own hands as if he'd never seen them before. He blinked. "I got in a fight with a wall. The wall won."

Link wasn't surprised. He'd picked up his old habit of biting his nails again. They had different ways of coping.

"How's your family?" Rhett asked.

"Alive. Yours?"

Rhett opened and closed his right hand, smearing the blood on his knuckles with his thumb. "Last I heard, Jessie had a hard decision to make. But it was for the best."

Jessie was Rhett's wife. "Christy too...They were going to the Coliseum."

Link checked the mini-bar. Rhett had drank every alcoholic beverage in there...along with most of a full-size bottle of scotch.

"Link," Rhett said, "I have an idea."

Link had heard that exact sentence a million times in their relationship, but this time it felt different. It felt – dangerous. He sat on the bed. "What is it?"

"Let's go to California."

Link was confused. "That's what we've been trying to do. The whole state's under quarantine."

Rhett shook his head. "We're not flying. We're driving. Let's road trip it. The California border's hundreds of miles long. You think they can patrol every inch of it?"

Link thought about it. Drive to the border? Sneak past the military? Fight past the zombie-infested streets of Los Angeles?

Save their families?

"Sounds like you already made up your mind," Link said.

"I've made up my mind I want to go. But I won't if you're not coming with me. So what are we doing?"

This was usually how their adventures went: Rhett would come to Link with some outlandish proposal, and Link would have a decision to make. He had veto power over everything. But once he agreed to it, both were totally committed: not 50/50, but 100/100.

Link looked at Rhett, his best friend, business partner, and brother-in-arms – the man he loved and trusted most in the world – who had also just asked him to break many government orders and put their lives at risk. No one else could have asked him to do that. Partly because no one else would have.

"All right," he said. "Let's do it."


	2. Omaha

Rhett and Link didn't like to waste time. As soon as they made their decision, Link grabbed a hotel notepad and uncapped a pen. "You were really into apocalypse preparation. What do we need to get to California?"

"I don't know."

Link rolled his eyes. "Jeez, you're useless."

"I always imagined more of a 'nuclear bunker' situation, not a 'fight your way across a zombie-infested hellscape' situation."

The two were still able to brainstorm some necessities. In the end their list looked not unlike a supply checklist for an offroading expedition.

They needed a car, first of all – an SUV, in case roads were unusable. ("Maybe we can get a RAV4?" "Rhett, is now really the time to think about the environment?" "Hey, we might have a hard time finding gas. Imagine if Mad Max had a Tesla.") They needed food and water, maps and a compass, flashlights, a first aid kit, and things to start a fire. Link wanted sunscreen.

"What about protection?" Link asked.

"You already said sunscreen."

"No, I mean...defending ourselves."

This was an aspect Rhett hadn't really considered, and even now he couldn't hold it firmly in his mind. Hunting and visiting gun ranges weren't his favorite hobbies. He'd tried both before, but not often enough to be a firearms expert, or even firearms-comfortable. The last time he'd punched someone was thirty years ago, in third grade, when a larger kid had been bullying Link. Usually he depended on his size to intimidate people before things ever got that far.

Obviously that wouldn't work with zombies. But he couldn't imagine himself, or Link, as a fighter either. The thought was ridiculous.

"My plan's just to run like hell," he said.

"I don't see that working every time."

"Look, you can't buy a gun in Chicago anyway. You need a firearms permit here. Let's worry about that when we're closer to LA."

"We could get...like...a machete."

"I don't trust you around sharp objects."

It took the rest of the day, but they found everything they needed in the city. The car rental place didn't have a RAV4, but it did have a white Honda HR-V, which was almost as good. They loaded up its back with supplies.

Back at the hotel they laid out maps on the room's table. Link traced out highways with a pink highlighter.

"Here's the route," he said. "First leg is here to Omaha. The I-80 West takes us straight there. Then Omaha to Denver. Still on the I-80 till we need to turn left on I-76 to get into Colorado. Then we've got a long ride to Las Vegas – might need to stop in Utah on the way. But Las Vegas to LA is four hours."

"So a four-day trip."

Link shook his head. "It can't be that simple. Nevada's quarantined too. We don't know how secure the borders are, or how far out of our way we'll need to go."

"Well, you know me. I'm a big fan of improvising."

Link looked slightly nauseated at that. In general, Link was a planner, and Rhett was more willing to wing it. Rhett was all for taking risks; Link wanted certain guarantees.

"I can tell you're already thinking of the 'what ifs,'" Rhett said. "We'll just need to jump in blind. Any movement's better than staying here."

"I don't disagree," Link said carefully. "I just wish there was a way to be more prepared."

"We know what we know," Rhett said. It was one of his favorite quotes from college. He liked to repeat it whenever Link was stressed out before an exam. "That’ll have to be good enough."

***

Link woke up before dawn to record a message for his wife.

He knew she wouldn't answer. He wasn't even sure she still had her phone, so he planned to email the message instead.

As always, he told his family he loved them. He added, "Rhett and I are leaving Chicago today. We're going to LA. We're going to find you. We don't know what we're going to run into on the way...or how dangerous it'll be...but it doesn't really matter, I guess. Our place is back home, with you. Once you know the right thing to do, how can you not do it? ...Anyway. Rhett and I are going to look out for each other. I'm sure we'll have lots of stories to tell by the end of this. I'll see you soon."

Link stopped recording. He sighed deeply. Goodbye to Chicago. Goodbye to safety.

The door to his room opened. It was Rhett. He had been up and out even earlier than Link. "You ready?" he asked.

"Yeah. Are you?"

"I was born ready," he said. "We're checked out. Let's go."

***

Rhett hated cornfields.

Leaving Chicago was easy. They had stayed there for so long that Rhett had started to believe there was an invisible force field around the city: the rest of the country was in flames and only this city remained. Once they left downtown Chicago, however, it became clear this wasn't true. The city felt disturbingly normal. There were no soldiers, no police officers, nothing to stop them from leaving Chicago. The entire zombie apocalypse could have been a film they saw – not a real disaster at all.

The only sign things had changed was that their SUV was almost the only car headed west.

In a few hours they were out of Illinois and well into Iowa, and Rhett got to think about how much he hated cornfields.

Rhett and Link had gone on many road trips together, and this meant passing many, many miles of farmland. But there was something uniquely disturbing about cornfields: all these miles of identical plants, same height, same color, same exact rows, as if someone had hit copy-paste a thousand times over. It was unsettling. You could drive for hours and still seem to be in exactly the same place. 

Link was staring out his window. He'd been quiet most of the morning. Rhett'd had a thousand opportunities, in the last hundreds of miles, to tell Link what was on his mind, but somehow...he couldn't. It wasn't what Link needed to hear right now. 

Some secrets can't come out even at the end of the world.

“Whenever we’re on a long trip,” Rhett said instead, “I pretend we’re racing the other cars. But that’s always harder in cornfields. It feels like we’re not moving at all.”

“Like we’re going in circles? That’s more realistic, then. Car races end in the same place you started. Think of the Indy 500.”

“Everything I know about racing, I learned from _Cars_.”

Link was silent for a while. Rhett thought he was lost in meditation again, until Link said, “I hate those movies.”

“Yeah, I guess the characters weren’t as memorable…”

“It’s not that. It’s that the universe doesn’t make any goddamn sense.”

“Oh boy, here we go,” Rhett said as Link launched into a rant.

“How do cars make buildings when they don't have hands? Tractors are cows in the _Cars_ universe – are they milking them? Are they _eating_ them? Are cars manufactured or born? Do cars have sex? _How_ would they have sex? There's a car-pope, so is there a car-Jesus? That died for their car-sins? Why is Pixar forcing me to think about this?”

“Maybe you need to stop blaming Pixar, and start asking yourself why a children's movie can bring you to the brink of an existential crisis.”

Link switched on the radio instead of replying. A news talk show came through: 

_"–The undead seem to have excellent hearing, particularly for higher pitches. Their vision relies on detecting movement rather than color_." 

_"And how do we know that?"_

_"Well, mainly by examining footage, and from the testimony of hunters. These 'zombies' are nearly impossible to restrain–"_

"Hunters?" Rhett repeated.

"I don't even know the lingo anymore."

_"–and a bite or a scratch can immediately transmit the virus."_

_"And what is happening outside of the west coast?"_

_"Many states are taking precautionary measures. The governor of Colorado is offering a bounty on dead zombies, at a rate of $10,000 a head. Meanwhile other cities are being preemptively quarantined, even with no sign of zombies in their state. Of course, this has caused a lot of controversy about civil liberties..."_

Eventually the farmland of Iowa gave way to flat plains and thin, wild patches of trees. The air grew damp as the wide Missouri River flowed slowly before them. They crossed the river into Nebraska.

Rhett slowed the car while Link rolled his window all the way down.

"Whoa."

The bridge over the river led straight into Omaha. North of the bridge, on the riverfront, was a spacious park; south of the bridge was a train station. What made Rhett slow the car on the empty interstate, however, was that both the park and the station had become an enormous camp.

Tents made of dirty blue and gray tarps sprawled for acres and acres. Hundreds of vehicles had torn up the park grass and reduced it to mud. Smoke rose from the tents, giving the impression that the whole settlement was lightly steaming.

Rhett and Link had been to Omaha before. This was not normal. 

"Think they're from the west coast?" Rhett asked.

"They made it all the way to  _Nebraska_?"

"We should ask."

"Why?"

Rhett looked at Link. "Because if they got  _out_ , they can tell us how to get  _in_."

As Link had said just yesterday: getting to LA couldn't be as easy as simply driving there. They needed clues. They needed strategy. Plus Rhett was curious to meet survivors, if this was what they were. What had they seen? Had they handled zombies before?

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Link said.

"Yeah. Well." Rhett pulled off the interstate. "You're not the one driving."

Rhett navigated their way to the riverfront. They parked in a roundabout with three flagpoles in the center, in front of a large greenhouse. The flagpoles were set inside what should have been an elaborate formal arrangement of plants, but all the flowers had either wilted or grown leggy and shapeless. No one had tended them in a while.

The flags were all at half mast, limp and spotted from rain.

"Lauritzen Gardens," Link read. "This is a botanical garden. Or it used to be."

The camp started just behind the greenhouse. Rhett led the way with Link behind.

The sour rankness of unwashed bodies hung over the camp, and Rhett was glad there was a slight breeze over the river. Piles of trash and snaking laundry lines added bits of color. Rhett had imagined strolling in like an anthropologist in a foreign village, taking notes from anyone who would speak to him. Once they set foot at the edge of the camp however, the hairs rose up at the back of his neck. He knew before he saw it. They were being watched. 

An old man in a lawn chair smoked a cigarette in front of his tent, looking at them with unreadable eyes, while two younger men approached. They looked like bouncers: all muscle and business.

Rhett went with the nonthreatening approach.

"Hi!" he said.

"Who are you?" one of the men asked. "Tourists? Hunters?"

There was that word again. "No, we just want to talk."

"Journalists?" The man squared his shoulders. "The World-Herald was here last week. They called us squatters."

"No, nothing like that." Rhett mentally sighed. He never had patience for intimidation games. He had even less now. "All we want is–"

A woman came out of the old man's tent – maybe his wife. Her bright pink muumuu caught Rhett's attention. They locked eyes. She called out to him.

"Are you from the archdiocese?"

At that, the young men seemed to hesitate. Rhett decided to take it.

"Yes! I'm James...McQueen, and this is my brother, Charles."

Rhett saw Link glance at him. He couldn't explain it to Link now: if thinking they were from the archdiocese would get the campers to talk, he didn't want a fast Google search to give them away. Besides, they'd be out of town in an hour anyway. 

The men instantly relaxed as the woman came closer. Her husband, however, still watched them warily. 

"We've been waiting for you!" she said. "What donations came in?"

"Oh, they're – back in our car."

At this Link really began to stare at him, but Rhett pretended he didn’t notice. They led the woman and the two young men back to the SUV, where they began unloading some of their supplies: cases of granola bars, gallons of water, dried fruit and toilet paper. This cleaned out some of Rhett and Link's shopping list, but the woman looked disappointed. 

"I understand," she said. "They don't want us here. People aren't so generous these days."

"Where are you from?" Rhett asked as they carried the supplies back.

"Oregon. The whole camp's from Oregon. Have you heard of Gold Beach?"

"No one's heard of Gold Beach," the old man in front of the tent said. He exhaled a cloud of smoke. 

The woman sighed. "Umberto's a cranky bastard," she said, and went into the tent.

Rhett saw the two young men go through the camp with their supplies. A hand would reach out from a tent, and they would give it a single granola bar, or pour a few ounces of water into a dirty cup. They had many tents to visit. Soon they disappeared from sight. 

"We're the new lepers," Umberto said. For a moment Rhett thought he was talking to himself. "Town to town, everyone thinks we'll infect them."

"How did you get here?" Rhett asked.

Umberto described the route. They had stayed north, going through Idaho and Wyoming to Nebraska. "Didn't want to touch Nevada. It's as bad as Oregon, we heard. And it's bad in Oregon." He coughed – a chest-deep smoker's cough – and wiped his mouth. "The only people who want to be there now are hunters."

"'What does that mean, 'hunters?'"

Umberto frowned. "Like it sounds. People who hunt zombies. Crazy redneck survivalists, mostly. It's a dream come true for them." 

"How do they get in?"

"Who knows? I know they want to. But whether they succeed, or just get eaten or zombie-fied like everyone else – I don't know. Everyone from the Rockies on west is nuts," he said, settling into a new theme. "I heard people are trying to transport zombies into Colorado."

Link interrupted. "You mean they're deliberately trying to infect people? Why would they do that?" 

Umberto took a long drag on his cigarette. "That's cute," he said.

"What?"

"Colorado's offering a bounty for fresh-killed zombies. And you're wondering why people are bringing them in." He spat on the ground.

"James!"

It took Rhett a few seconds to remember to respond. He turned around. It was one of the young men who'd stopped them when they entered the camp. "Do you have any painkillers? One of the kids here is running a fever. We could use whatever you've got."

Rhett thought about a single protein bar being divided among a family. He thought about being seen as diseased in every town you visited. He took out his car keys and tossed them over. "Sure. We've got a bottle of aspirin in the front cupholder."

The man jogged off with the keys. Rhett did not look at Link, but could feel his stare.

"You're very trusting, Jimmy," Link said under his breath.

"It was the Christian thing to do, Chuck," Rhett replied.

Umberto's wife came out of the tent. "A couple from Ogden gave me this. Maybe you can use it," she said. She gave Link a laminated card. Before Rhett could look at it, she continued, "We're lucky. The bishop here has some say with the mayor, so we can stay in Omaha for a while. But we'll need to be moving on soon. Could you boys say a Hail Mary for us?"

Rhett and Link looked at each other. Umberto grinned in his chair, as if he just got the punchline to a joke.

"Uh, maybe – you could start?" Link said to the woman.

She looked at both of them. "You don't have the Hail Mary memorized?"

Rhett was thinking fast. Hadn’t he heard it in a movie at some point? Or they could say the Lord's Prayer instead – that was common to all denominations, right?

But Link said, "We're...not really Catholic."

"Don't say that!" she said. "Bless you, my grandsons went through CCD and still can't pray a rosary. You're still Catholic even if you forget the prayers. Do you have children?" she asked Link.

"Yes. I have three." He seemed about to say more, but he suddenly choked. He looked down, and took a deep breath. "I have three," he repeated, quieter.

She looked Link in the eye, then stepped forward to give him a long, tight hug. She hugged Rhett as well. "Thank you. Stay safe."

The man came back and returned the rental car keys. Rhett and Link left the camp, started the car, and got back on the I-80.

It was two in the afternoon. They'd already driven for seven hours, but they had decided to drive as long and far as they could. This was the easy part of the journey, after all. 

After Omaha was well behind them, Rhett noticed Link was turning the laminated card over in his hand. 

"What is it?" Rhett asked.

"Prayer card to St. Jude," Link said. He read, "Hope of the Hopeless. Patron saint of impossible causes. There is safety in Zion."

"What?"

"That's not in print; someone wrote it on the card. 'There is safety in Zion.' I guess they meant heaven?" Link slipped the card into his pocket – then stopped. He patted his jeans. He opened the glove compartment, groped inside for a while, then bent down to look within.

"Do you have your phone?"

"Sure, it's..." Rhett trailed off. He kept his phone in his back pocket. He hadn't even thought about it, but now he realized he couldn't feel its weight anymore.

Link contorted himself further to look at the floor by his seat. He sat up again. "Dude. She stole our phones!"

***

Rhett pulled over so they could look through all the car compartments.

The Oregonians hadn't just taken their phones. They'd also taken their flashlights, the first aid kit, batteries, matches, maps, a can opener, and most of the food. 

"Okay. Calm down," Rhett said as he started the car again. "They're just things. They can be replaced."

"But our  _phones_ , man!"

"Phones can be replaced too." Privately, Rhett thought they didn't have anyone to call anyway. The only people he wanted to talk to were his family, and they couldn't answer. "Besides, you set a lock screen password, right?"

Link paused. "Yes."

Rhett caught on. "Was it 'one two three four?'"

"...Yes."

"Man..." Rhett said. "How can you be so worried and so careless at the same time?"

"I'm careless? You're the one who let them get in the car! Gave them the damn keys."

"Hey, so it could have been a lot worse. They could have stolen the car."

Rhett thought that was pretty funny, but Link gave him a look of disgust. "I am really not in the mood, Rhett."

As far as Rhett could tell, Link's mood did not improve over the many empty miles of Nebraska. He gave short answers to all of Rhett’s questions, when he responded at all. Rhett didn’t mind. He’d pissed off Link often enough to know he always came around eventually.

After fourteen hours of driving, they finally stopped for the night at a Super 8 in North Platte. Not the Four Seasons. Not home. But not a tent on a muddy riverbank either.

As always, Link fell asleep first. He had a soldier's ability to fall asleep instantly, anywhere. Rhett didn't have this talent. He switched on the TV with the volume muted.

News. Captions scrolled across the bottom. A biologist was comparing the virus to a fungus that controlled ants. The screen showed cell phone pictures of zombies. All the photographs were blurry and faraway. Rhett still didn’t know what zombies looked like up close. 

In all things, Rhett always had more faith than Link. He had an almost foolhardy instinct that, one way or another, everything would come out all right. It wasn’t precisely optimism. Belief was no protection against pain, and they had failed and suffered before. It was more that Rhett was a practical person at heart. There were two possible responses to uncertainty: fear, or faith. In Rhett’s experience, fear had never helped him.     

He did not even fear for his family anymore. He had at the beginning. Long before any of this had happened, Rhett had thought about how he would react to a disaster. He had wondered if faith would fail him, if he would break, if at the end of the trial he would turn out to be Judas or Job. But now he was filled with a certainty that surprised even him. He knew, without a doubt, that he was going to see his family again. They were safe. They were waiting for him. He had no proof of this, but he knew.     

He had only one fear now, and one regret. The regret was that they hadn’t left Chicago immediately, as soon as they heard about the outbreak. The fear was for Link. Even though Rhett was only a few months older, he had always had a big brotherly impulse towards his friend – which Link hated, and often fought against. Rhett didn’t care about that now. He cared about what Link needed, not what he wanted.  

Rhett had only two goals for this trip. One, reach Los Angeles. Two, protect Link. Link was breakable. Rhett had to deliver him to his family in one piece.  

Photographs flickered across the screen. Rhett watched, and tried to imagine what fighting against these things would be like.   

***

They were out again before dawn.

Link was driving this time. Nebraska passed swiftly by. Rhett didn't mind the prairie: Nebraska was full of vast nothingness, but it was comforting rather than creepy. If he paid attention – this was easier to do in the passenger's seat – Rhett could make out small dips and swells in the land, like the furrows of a blanket, and faint shades of red and purple in the downy grass. 

In a little while they had a crossroads coming up. Rhett said, "Hey, just stay on I-80. Don’t turn."

"Why would we stay on I-80?"

"It'd take us north. To Oregon." It was how the refugees had reached Omaha. Avoid Utah and Nevada. Come in from the redwoods.

"You trust those guys? After what they did?" Link asked.

"Look, I was thinking about this. What did they steal? Just small things. Maps. Food. Our phones, sure, but they left our wallets. They didn't take our money or IDs. They weren’t trying to hurt us. They're just trying to survive, same as we are. And we have firsthand accounts of this route. We don't have any clue how we're getting into Nevada."

"It'd take us  _days_  out of our way," Link said. "We don't have time to waste. Besides, it's the whole state that's infected now, right? Do you want to fight down the whole state, from freakin' Chico to LA? Let's stick with the plan."

"Okay." They were almost at the on-ramp for Interstate 76. Rhett knew it had to be both or none. You couldn't lobby for a majority vote with only two people. But as Link made the turn onto the highway that would take them into Colorado, Rhett said, "Just for the record, I think this is a terrible idea, but I'm going along with it anyway because I respect you."

"Will you stop trying to cover your ass? I'm the only one here."

Rhett said nothing to that. They drove into Colorado, and the flat prairie gradually changed into hills and mountains. Trees overtook the empty grass – short and scrubby at first, then mixed with tall, skinny pines. 

Rhett said nothing, but he was thinking.

Just west of Denver, Link asked, "Do you want to switch?"

"Yeah. Okay."

Link pulled over so they could swap seats. As he buckled in, Link said, "Sorry."

"Sorry?"

"For being…I don't know. Short with you."

In Rhett’s opinion Link had nothing to be sorry for, but he also knew Link never apologized unless he meant it. "It's okay, man. I would die for you, and I know you'd do the same."

He started the ignition. 

"No, I wouldn't, actually," Link said.

Rhett stopped with his hand on the key. "Well, jeez."

Link explained quickly, "I just think if we were in a situation where one of us had to die for the other, you would rather be the one to go. I'm respecting your wishes, man. What? Am I wrong?"

"So I would die for you, and you would let me?"

"Yeah." 

That seemed to demand a sharp response, but Rhett had to admit that no, Link wasn’t wrong. If they had a choice, he’d choose himself every time. "I would adopt your kids if something happened to you."

Link snorted. "You don't need to adopt my kids. They have a mom, you weirdo."

Rhett shifted the car out of park and rolled slowly away from the shoulder. Since Link seemed to be in a better mood… "If we go on the Blue River Parkway, we can still head into Wyoming and stay north."

He could tell this was not going to go well even before he finished speaking. Link exhaled very slowly. "Do you even care what I say, or are you going to just do whatever you want and force me along with you?"

"I'm not forcing you. That's why I'm asking."

"I already said no. What else do you need?"

"I don’t know, maybe a reason for why you want to drive through three different states with zombie sightings? If you thought of your kids–"

"They're all I'm thinking about! They could be _dead._ Do you realize that? Have you really, really thought about it? Because that’s the only thing I care about right now. And you're still acting like we're on some adventure-"

_THUMP_

The car suddenly rocked. Rhett hadn't been going fast – but he hadn't been paying attention either. Link stopped still, wide-eyed. 

"Did you just hit someone?"


	3. Denver

Link got out first. He ran over to the side of the road, where a woman was lying down and groaning. Rhett had definitely hit someone. 

She was a tall, athletic-looking woman, perhaps in her 50s: streaks of gray charged through her curly hair. Oddly, she was wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, but she seemed to have run some distance. Mud clogged her slip-on sneakers. 

"Are you all right?" Link knelt down. "We're–"

"Don't touch me!" she said.

Link backed away immediately. Rhett had come out and stood by him now.

The woman was gripping her side. It was hard to see with the headlights pointed in a different direction, but Link could make out a dark stain on her robe, beneath her hand.

"You're hurt," he said. 

"She just ran out in front of me," Rhett said helplessly.

Link kept his attention on the woman. "We need to get you help. Come inside. We won't hurt you."

She looked at Link finally. Her chest rose and fell with deep breaths. "Yeah, okay," she said at last, and held out a hand. Rhett and Link helped her into the backseat of the SUV.

As he clicked in his seatbelt, Link mentally cursed all of Oregon and its phone-and-first-aid-kit-stealing people. They couldn't call for help. They couldn't do anything for her but drive.

"Where do we go?" Link asked.

"Back Denver way?" Rhett said.

It was the closest city. Rhett pulled a U-turn. 

"What's your name, ma'am?" Rhett asked.

A second passed. "Fiona."

"That's a real nice name," Rhett said.

Fiona didn't reply, even after Rhett introduced himself and Link. Link wondered why the hell she was running on the highway in her bathrobe, but Fiona didn't seem up to explanations now.

The miles whizzed past. Rhett was speeding. Link didn't mind in the slightest.

After about fifteen minutes, Fiona said, "Your license plate says Illinois, but you're not from there."

"No, we're from North Carolina originally," Rhett said.

"Heh." It wasn't quite a laugh. More a soft exhalation of breath, but Link could see in the rearview mirror she was almost smiling. "I could tell when you called me 'ma'am.'"

"Ever been?"

"I have family in South Carolina," she said. "The good Carolina."

"Hey, now..."

"But I fell in love with mountains and snow. Had to move out here. Always was the odd one."

"Why were you out on the highway today?" Link asked.

"I was running," she said. "Running for my life."

"From..."  _Zombies_? he thought. It couldn't be; there were zombies in Utah, he'd heard, but Colorado was too far east. Unless the rumors about zombie traffickers were true...

Fiona seemed to know what he was thinking. "No," she said. "People who want me dead."

"Why?"

She didn't answer immediately. "You said 'originally.' So where do you live now?"

"California. Los Angeles," Rhett said.

"You're  _from_  California?"

"Yeah."

Link still watched her in the mirror. He saw her shut down: she pulled her bathrobe tight around her waist and curled up in the backseat, as if shielding herself from blows. "Just get me to a hospital, please," she said, soft but definite.

Rhett stepped even harder on the accelerator.

The sky began to lighten – the beginnings of a gray, muggy day. Rhett kept the headlights on long after the sun started to cut through the fog.

Fiona said nothing more to them, but in the mirror Link could see her become slowly, steadily worse. A sheen of sweat covered her forehead. She was shivering. Being hit by a car couldn't cause a fever – but Link realized he had no idea how much blood she'd lost. She could be bleeding internally. She might have even broken something. 

"We have blankets in the back-" he said.

"No. Keep going," she said, and bit her lip. 

As the miles passed, Link finally saw a break in the fog. In front of them was a road checkpoint: a small building with vinyl walls surrounded by a barbed wire fence, and on the road, lights, cones, and heavily armored guards.

They were twenty miles from Denver. 

Rhett stopped the car as a guard came to the window. Link reached for their wallets in the glove compartment, but the guard said, "No one's allowed into Denver. The city's under strict quarantine."

Link remembered the newscast from yesterday. Was Denver being preemptively quarantined, or had something happened?

"I've got a woman here who's badly hurt. She needs help," Rhett said.

As he spoke another guard pointed what looked like a gun at them – Link's heart leapt – but then Link saw it was white, and plastic. The guard aimed it at their foreheads, checked some reading on the handle, and nodded. It was an infrared thermometer, Link realized. The guard was taking their temperatures.

When the guard pointed it at Fiona, his eyebrows rose, as Link expected.  _They must see that she's sick. They must let us get help for her_. But instead of asking more questions, the guard stepped back, and at some invisible signal all the others at the checkpoint trained their handguns – at Rhett and Link.

"Get out of the car!" the first guard barked at them.

"What? I'm asking for help!" Rhett said.

"Leave the woman, and step away from the vehicle!"

Fiona looked terrified. Link no longer understood what was going on. Leave Fiona? Did they think he and Rhett were a threat? 

Did they think  _Fiona_  was a threat?

"Rhett-" Link began, but Rhett interrupted.

"We're not leaving her," he said, then looked at Link. "Right?"

"I – okay," Link said. He suddenly realized he didn't know what he was agreeing to.

"Right," Rhett said, and put the car in gear. "Hang on, Link, we're going in hot!"

" _What_?" Link said, right before he was slammed into his seat by the sudden acceleration. Rhett had gunned it. 

Link could swear he heard gunfire and whooping sirens behind them. Rhett was pressing the gas pedal to the floor. The SUV zoomed down the mountain road.

"Are you crazy?! You're going to get us both killed!" Link looked back at Fiona. She looked worse than ever. Her eyes were shut and her skin looked ashen. Link wondered if she had fainted.

The SUV careened around a sharp turn. Link saw it coming only a moment before it caught them: a spike strip.

For one stomach-turning second it felt like the car was lifted off the ground, bucking like a rodeo bull. Then all four punctured tires hit the road with a shuddering squeal. Rhett turned the wheel sharply, trying to regain control. The car did a full 180, the back tires hanging off the road, just as a black vehicle from the checkpoint stopped behind them.

Rhett took his foot off the gas at last. 

A guard came out of the driver's door. He immediately assumed a shooter's stance, pointing at Rhett and Link. "Well, boys," he said, "you are well and truly fucked."

***

They were separated. 

The guards took Fiona away from them. She was completely unconscious. They dragged her into the back of a van, her limbs loose and wooden as a doll's. 

Rhett and Link were handcuffed and brought back to the checkpoint. When Link protested that all their things were in the SUV, one guard harshly told him to shut up – while another told him the SUV would be searched, and all their things restored to them.

For a moment Rhett was amused. He didn't know the good cop/bad cop routine was a real thing.

The checkpoint had a single jail cell and what looked like a doctor's exam room. Rhett could see there were other rooms in the building, but the hallway was barred by a metal gate.

Both were patted down in the exam room. While guards watched, a silent woman in scrubs – a doctor, or maybe a nurse? – checked both of them, lights in their eyes, lights in their ears. Then a guard grabbed Link by the arm and hauled him away. 

Before Rhett could ask where they were taking him, two different guards led him outside. To Rhett's surprise, they took his handcuffs off. When he asked about Link, one guard answered that they’d see each other in a few minutes.

That was all he could get out of them, so Rhett began to explore the yard.

The backyard of the checkpoint was fairly small. It was only a grass clearing, with forest just beyond the fence. 

Every ten feet or so on the fence, there were yellow signs reading, "SHOCK WARNING! ELECTRIC FENCE!" with a helpful picture of a lightning bolt, in case you missed the point. This was all: the electric, barbed wire fence, empty ground, and two stern guards with hands on their holsters. 

Rhett began to pace. 

He looked carefully at the fence. It was nearly flush to the ground in most places, but near one corner the ground wasn't perfectly flat. There was a dip in the earth – large enough that a skinny raccoon could squeeze under, perhaps. Not a full grown man. Especially one who didn't want to get electrocuted.

After about half an hour, the guards took him back inside. Rhett saw that Link was being led outside for his turn in the yard. He also saw now why they had to switch places: a man in military uniform was waiting for him at a desk near the front door. Rhett saw he was about to be interrogated. The building was small enough that conversations would be easy to overhear.

Rhett sat down. The man took out a California driver's license and passed it to Rhett on the desk.

"This is you?"

"Yes."

"How about you tell me how you got from LA to Colorado?"

Rhett told his story, starting in Chicago and ending when they literally ran into Fiona. The man did not seem particularly interested. Rhett suspected he'd heard it all before from Link. 

“So your SUV is a rental.”

“Right.”

“You know, just yesterday a vehicle with this license plate was in Nebraska. Except it belonged to two brothers who claimed to be doing missionary work for the Archdiocese of Omaha. Which was a big surprise to the actual missionaries, when they arrived. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?” 

“I – I told you we drove through Nebraska.”

“Under false names?”

Rhett didn’t know what to say to that. What case were they building, exactly? What did they think Rhett and Link were doing?

After Rhett had been silent for some time, the man asked, "Why did you run?"

"I thought you were going to take Fiona away. You know. Exactly like you did."

The man didn't respond. 

"How is she? Are you helping her?"

"She doesn't need help," the man said. 

Rhett considered himself to be fairly quick on the uptake. But now, all at once, he realized how stupid he'd been. All the clues were there. He should have known...

"Take him back," the man said to the guards.

The guards led him to the jail cell. There was no furniture in the cell: just bare floors, bare walls, and one small window. Rhett lay down on the ground.

In a minute Link was brought in from the outside. "Good news," the guard said to Link. "Your boyfriend's story tallies with yours."

Link winced. "He's not my boyfriend. We're married-"

"Oh, sorry. Husband."

"-to  _women_ ," Link finished, but the guard just laughed at his own dumb joke and closed the door.

Link folded up near the bars, arms crossed on his knees, far away from Rhett. 

Minutes passed. Rhett heard the guards shuffle away – out of sight, maybe, but not earshot.

"Hey," Rhett said. 

"Shut up, Rhett," Link said. He buried his face in his arms.

Rhett waited a few more moments. "Is that it, then?" he asked. "You're just going to be pissed at me for however long we'll be in here?"

"We're  _in here_  because of your stupid decision!"

"I was stupid," Rhett said. "But not for the reason you're thinking." 

That seemed to give Link pause. 

"So we need to talk." Rhett quirked a smile. "Sorry, I know. Worst four words your 'wife' can say to you."

"Those aren't the four worst words," Link said. "There are thousands of things she could say that're way worse than that."

"Like?"

Link ticked them off on his fingers. "'I want a divorce.' 'I have terminal cancer.' 'Our children aren't yours.' 'I've just killed someone.'"

Rhett turned his head towards Link. "You've thought about this."

"I'm a slightly anxious person."

Rhett scooted a little closer. "Listen," he said in a lower voice. "Why do you think they're keeping us?"

"Because you started a car chase."

"No," Rhett said. "It's because..." He glanced at the hallway. "They think we're trafficking."

"Trafficking what?"

"Like the Oregonians said. Into Denver."

Rhett saw comprehension dawn in Link's eyes. 

"But we're too far east!" Link said.

Rhett shrugged. "Apparently not."

What Rhett had figured out, and Link now understood, was this: somehow, at some point, Fiona had been bitten by a zombie. Someone had witnessed this. They knew what she would become, so they had tried to kill her. She had run away – right into Rhett and Link. They had brought her back to Denver. They'd wanted to help her, but as far as the guards knew, two men from California were trying to bring a zombie into the city. This was their nightmare scenario. 

Fiona was beyond help. Perhaps she had already transformed. 

So it didn't matter that Rhett had run. Once they realized what Fiona was, the guards would have taken Rhett and Link into custody anyway.  That was the good news.

The bad news was, trying to transport a zombie was a far, far more serious offense.

"Did you see..."

"What?"

Rhett wanted to describe the dip he'd seen below the fence, but a guard positioned himself just outside the bars. 

"Never mind," Rhett said, and shifted away. 

***

Link wasn't sure how long they stayed in the cell. The small, high window was covered with opaque vinyl film: it let in light, but it was hard to guess the time of day. At some point he tried to sleep, but no matter how he moved he seemed to always have a bone resting directly on the hard floor. 

Rhett seemed to have achieved a Zen state. His eyes were closed, but he was frowning slightly, as if deep in thought. 

After hours inside, the guards opened their door. For a second Link thought they were going free, but instead the guards only let them outside, to the yard. 

Link stopped to talk to one guard. He was young, nervous-looking. The name stitched on his uniform read "P. Vasquez."

"Are we on break?" Link asked. 

Vasquez shook his head. "I don't know. We were just told to get you out of the building."

"Are we under arrest?" Link said. "Because no one's said anything to us. I thought we'd get to...call a lawyer, or something."

"I don't know, bro," Vasquez said. "Nothing's normal right now. We're just trying to keep you safe."

" _Safe_?" Link repeated.

A crackle from the other guard's radio interrupted them. Both guards listened intently to their earpieces. Link decided to leave them alone for now.

Rhett was walking slowly near the fence, eyes on the ground. Link joined him.

"Looking for something?"

"Yeah," Rhett said. "A way out."

Link shook his head – till he saw Rhett reach out and touch a wire.

Link grabbed Rhett's shoulders to pull him back. "Are you nuts?!"

Rhett rubbed his forefinger. "Nothing. Didn't shock me." Link let go; Rhett looked back at the fence. "I forget exactly how these fences work, but...I think there's only one or two live wires, and even then the electricity only comes in pulses. If you had a heavy enough object..." He stepped back. "I have an idea."

"I really don't want to hear it."

Link had as good an understanding of electricity as Rhett. He knew something heavy, if placed on a charged wire for long enough, could short circuit the fence. He just didn't care. The yard was completely empty; they had nothing to work with. And even if the fence wasn't electrified, there was still razor wire at the top. 

Rhett said nothing for a while. They kept walking slowly around the perimeter. 

"Have you ever thought about how you’d survive in prison?" Rhett said, breaking the silence.

“Have you?”

“‘Course,” Rhett said, and Link was deeply unsurprised. “Keep my head down. Befriend someone more powerful than me. Cast everyone in a self-written musical comedy that’ll teach inspiring life lessons.”  

"I’ll just stick with you, then. There's no way I'd be in prison if you didn't get us there."

"Unless I hired a way better lawyer."

"Or if you threw me under the bus for a plea bargain."

"I would never do that," Rhett said, with mock chagrin. "If anything, I would throw myself under the bus so you can go free."

"That is very generous of you, Rhett."

"Of course, I expect you'll help me break out."

Link was about to make a lame joke about baking saws into cakes when there was a loud CRASH from the building. Both stopped moving. Link heard screams and what sounded like furniture being tossed, or the creaking groan of metal hinges being torn. 

Vasquez and the other guard opened the door, guns drawn. Link had a glimpse of broken glass on the floor, and then, for the first time, saw a zombie with his own eyes. 

He had seen shaky smartphone footage on the news. Eyewitness reports. It was like seeing something in a glimpse, out of the corner of your eye. No one who was close enough to see a zombie wanted to point their cameras at it for too long.

So it was with morbid fascination that Link stared, stock still. It was Fiona – wearing only her pajama pants now. Link could see a clear bite mark on her side, the side she'd been nursing when she was in their backseat. But at the same time, it was not Fiona at all. 

She – or more precisely, her reanimated corpse – moved as if every limb had a mind of its own. Her movements were febrile, like a spider or an octopus. Link was reminded of a swarm of ants moving in tandem. This was what her body was like now: each part moving under its own command, as separate but cooperative entities.

And she was  _fast_. 

One guard shot at her. With inhuman strength, she grabbed his throat and twisted; he dropped the gun as his neck snapped. Vasquez ran backwards, but not fast enough: she reached out, grabbed his wrist, and opened wide. Vasquez screamed.

Link looked away – to Rhett. Rhett was standing still. For a moment Link thought he was in shock, until Rhett brought two fingers to his mouth and whistled.

Fiona stopped to look at Rhett. Vasquez – sweating, but unbitten – trembled. A growl like nothing Link had heard before rolled from Fiona’s throat. She snapped her jaws, then ran towards Rhett. 

It happened too fast for Link to react – whether to run in the other direction, or push Rhett out of the way, or even try to tackle Fiona. She moved like a loping wolf. 

At the last moment, Rhett moved out of the way. 

Fiona slammed into the electric fence. 

Link heard a piercing, unearthly howl. Her body twitched as thousands of volts coursed through it. 

"Link, come on!"

Link looked down. There was a small dip in the ground, and Rhett had pulled up the bottom wire – temporarily grounded as Fiona was being shocked. Rhett had already squeezed under and was on the other side of the fence. He was holding up the wire for Link.

Link had to make a split decision.

If he left, he and Rhett would be alone in an unknown forest. They had no IDs, no phones, no vehicle, no supplies. They would be essentially criminals on the run: guilty, or suspected, of bringing a zombie into Colorado, of escaping detention, of unleashing a creature that'd killed at least one person and possibly more. 

But if he stayed, he and Rhett would be separated. And that could never happen.

Link darted under the fence. Rhett let go of the wire and pulled Link up. Together, they ran.

Behind them, Link could hear gunshots. Possibly Fiona being finished. The smell of burning flesh filled the air.

Rhett and Link crashed through the forest, not caring how much noise they made, just trying to put distance between themselves and the checkpoint. The trees were all tall, slender pines, like giant Christmas trees. There were a lot of them, but they offered no cover. 

In a minute Link heard someone behind them yell, "Where did they go?"

"Over there – listen out for them!"

Though the day was muggy, Link was grateful that the ground was dry – it made it easier to run – and that fallen pine needles weren't quite as loud as dry leaves. 

Rhett made a sharp left. Link followed blindly, and stumbled. 

He fell over tiny ridge, just a few feet high, shielded by a fallen pine. Rhett was sitting under the ridge's highest point. Link crouched next to him, shoulder to shoulder, and held his breath. 

He heard two pairs of feet stop above him. "Did they go left? Or right?"

Someone kicked at the fallen tree. Pine needles scattered on Link's head. "Right's easier." Then, "Bro, that cracker saved your life."

“Man, my brother’s in the Air Force, but I swear he’s seen less action than this checkpoint,” a voice Link now recognized as Vasquez replied.

The two guards jogged right. Link heard their footfalls grow fainter. 

Rhett squeezed his arm. They got up and headed in the other direction, quieter this time.

The forest was silent. The tops of the trees swayed a little against the gray sky. Link realized if they weren't running, he'd probably be chilled, but now he was grateful for the cold mountain mist.

After about ten minutes had passed, with no sound of anyone following them, Link panted out, "Rhett, remember how you said you'd die for me?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you also promise to kill me? If I'm bitten?"

Rhett looked at him.

"I'd just rather you do it," Link said.

Link expected a sarcastic reply, or a bad joke, but instead Rhett said, "Okay." His face was solemn.

In another ten minutes they found themselves going down a steep hill. Link saw something gray at the bottom. At first he thought it was water, but as the trees thinned out he saw it was a road. A little dark red Camry was parked on the shoulder.

Link was about to suggest that they stay away from roads when someone behind him shouted, "Stop!"

They both stopped. Link heard a rifle cock behind them. So they hadn't outrun the guards after all.

"Turn around."

Link turned slowly, as did Rhett. 

There were no guards. There was a boy – or almost a man, maybe 19 or 20 – in jeans and a leather jacket, pointing a rifle at them. Next to him was a woman, the same age, with long blond hair flowing out of a knit cap. She held a plastic bag tight to her chest.

They stared at each other. Then the man wavered slightly.

"Rhett and Link?" he asked.


	4. Arapaho

"Rhett and Link?" the man asked again. "Of _Good Mythical Morning_?"

"You know us?" Rhett asked.

"Yeah! My girlfriend loves you guys!" The man indicated the woman at his side, who blushed. He laid down his rifle. "What are you doing out here?"

"We're on the run, actually," Link said.

"Bad guys behind us."

"Need to make a getaway."

"Are you serious?" 

Rhett and Link nodded vigorously. 

The man glanced at his girlfriend. "We could help you out. Car's right there."

Rhett and Link didn't wait for a second invitation. They piled into the backseat of the Camry, and in a second the little car was squealing down the road. Rhett looked out the rear window. The road was clear. No one was following them.

"I'm Zach, and this is Olivia," the man said. "Who are you running from, exactly? I thought you guys were still in LA. Olivia was freaked out."

Rhett quickly summarized their history: their stay in Chicago, the ride to Omaha, and then their escape from Denver. He left out everything about Fiona, making it sound as though they were arbitrarily detained at the checkpoint. He didn't want these two young people to think they were criminals. Both Zach and Olivia were good listeners. Olivia hardly said anything.

"We're from California," Zach said. "Redding, up north. But we've got a cabin up around here."

"How is Redding? There's been a blackout over the whole state," Rhett said.

"We got out early, and we left everything behind," Zach said. "It's a war zone out there. Sacramento was on lockdown, but I heard they evacuated everyone now. It's some Mad Max-level shit everywhere that's not San Francisco."

"What about Los Angeles?"

Zach looked at them in the rearview mirror. "Haven't heard anything," he said finally.

They had a short car ride through what Zach told them was the Arapaho National Forest. It was nearly evening when they reached Zach and Olivia's cabin. 

The cabin was at the end of a narrow, lonely road deep in the forest, well off the interstate. Rhett's thought it looked abandoned. But after Zach let them in – the door was unlocked – he saw it was a neat, practical, rather minimalist place. Two bedrooms, a small living room with a single couch, one bathroom, and a kitchen. Rhett noted a collection of skis mounted to one corner. He had a feeling the cabin’s owner spent more time outdoors than in.

Link went to a photograph on the wall, which was slightly askew. He started to straighten it, then paused. "Family of yours?" he asked.

"Yeah," Zach said. The photograph seemed to be from the 80s. A large family was at a football game; one girl with long, curly hair was wearing a “Clemson Tigers” sweatshirt. Zach pointed out a middle-aged man sitting next to her. "That's my uncle. This is his cabin, really, but he lets the family visit whenever. We've been here a bunch of times."

"Huh," Link said.

Zach told Olivia to get dinner ready, but Link protested that he and Rhett should at least help, so they all headed to the kitchen. Olivia had been carrying a plastic bag during the car ride; she placed it in the freezer now. Only Link and Olivia could fit in the small pantry. Zach and Rhett waited for them at the table. 

Zach hadn't let go of his rifle since getting out of the car. Now he took a bit of steel wool from the sink and started to scrub flecks of rust on the gun's barrel.

"That's a nice gun you got there," Rhett said. He had no idea whether it was nice or not. It just seemed like a sociable thing to say. But Zach smiled, or smirked.

"It's a Remington 700," he said. "It's accurate, it’s got great range, and it’s reliable. Still fires after all sorts of hell. Which, trust me, came in handy when we were going over the Sierras." He moved the wool over the rifle's bolt, affectionately, as if petting a cat. "You definitely want a bolt action. I saw people messing with semi-automatics in the Redwoods. Nine times out of ten it was just for show. They didn't really know how to handle the big stuff."

Rhett had no idea what Zach was talking about. "Guess you could tell because they never brought a deer home?"

Zach looked at him. "I could tell because they got eaten," he said.

Link and Olivia came out of the pantry. Rhett noticed Olivia's cheeks were bright pink. Zach slowed in his scrubbing.

"Messieurs!" Link said. "On our menu tonight we have the  _finest_  beef stew, along with an American delicacy: canned corn. Excusez-moi as we prepare it for you."

Link found a can opener while Olivia stood in front of the stove. Nothing happened when she turned a dial. She hesitated, seemingly at a loss.

Rhett glanced at Zach, but he made no move to help his girlfriend with the recalcitrant gas stove. 

"You can use a match," Rhett said. "Just turn the gas on a little, then hold a match to the burner."

"Thanks," Olivia said. Her voice was very soft, practically still a child's voice. "I've only seen electric stoves at home."

Rhett set the table – Zach couldn't remember where the plates were kept, but Rhett found the right cabinet quickly. It took a short time to warm the stew and corn. 

Rhett should have been grateful for the food and shelter, but something was off at dinner – something he couldn't put his finger on. Olivia never looked at them. She kept her eyes on her plate. Zach had also turned sullen. Much as Rhett tried to keep up the conversation, even Link wasn't giving him much to work with. Instead Link was watching their hosts.

Rhett launched into a story from when they had just moved to Los Angeles. "One thing I love about LA is that no one talks about the weather. You can’t: it’s eighty degrees and sunny every day. Instead people talk about traffic. Traffic is the equivalent of rainy days and hurricanes to us. It’s a force of nature. I’ve seen people map out how to avoid the 10 like they were going into battle."

"I've never been to LA," Olivia said shyly.

"You never will, now," Zach said. "I went once. Place was full of shallow airheads."

Link shrugged. "Most people come from somewhere else. LA's made up of misfits. People who were too weird or too ambitious for their home states."

"And what were you?"

"Probably both," Rhett said.

Zach leaned back and slung an arm over Olivia's chair. "Guess I'm not weird enough."

"Or ambitious enough," Link said.

Olivia ducked her head down. Zach and Link looked at each other, like a lion and an antelope contemplating each other from afar. Rhett stood up. "I-"

"I'll wash the dishes," Olivia interrupted before Rhett could volunteer. She swiftly brought her own and Rhett's plate to the sink. 

"Sorry, there's only one bed in the other room," Zach said. He was still looking straight at Link. "Maybe one of you can take the couch?"

"I'll take the couch," Link said. "Rhett wouldn't fit on it anyway."

"Ha," Rhett said. "Hey buddy – a word?"

After thanking Olivia for the meal, Rhett beckoned Link into the smaller bedroom. He shut the door behind them.

"What's  _up_  with you?" Rhett asked. "You barely said anything all day, and then you were rude at dinner – what's going on?"

"I don't trust them," Link said.

"They're fans! They've been nothing but nice to us!"

"Fiona was in that photograph,” Link said. “This isn't their cabin. It might not even be their car."

Rhett started back. “What? I didn’t spot her–"

“The girl. With the curly hair. If she was, I don’t know, eighteen then she’d be the right age now. And _Clemson Tigers_? She said she was from South Carolina. What are the odds?”  

Rhett still wavered. The Tigers were pretty popular…

“Think about it,” Link insisted. “Olivia wasn't sure how to work the stove. Zach didn't open the door with a key – the lock was already broken. They don't even know where the plates are kept. This isn't his 'uncle's cabin.' I bet they broke in last night – and tried to kill Fiona after she got bitten.”

“Why would they take us in, then? What's the motive there?"

Link hesitated. "I don't know. I can't figure it out."

“Do you think they’re traffickers?” Rhett asked.

“…I don’t know. I don’t think so. They probably killed it, wherever it came from.”

Rhett suddenly remembered the red flecks of rust Zach had scrubbed off his rifle. It was rust...wasn't it?

Then he shook his head. Rhett was a practical person. As incredible as this was, it changed nothing. "Good thing we’re only spending a night here.”

“We’re still _sleeping_ here?”

“Do we have a choice? In case you forgot: middle of the woods. No car. No phones. No money. Whatever they’ve done, they’re still our way out.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Stay on their good side. See how far they can take us. And in the meantime – I'm going to enjoy sleeping in a bed.”

Link did not look in the least bit reassured. “Really? Your strategy is ‘sleep on it?’”

“‘Tomorrow’s evil is sufficient,’” Rhett quoted. “Enjoy the couch."

***

It was hard to sleep in the dead silence of a country cabin.

Link was used to different sounds at night. Passing cars. The air conditioning turning on or off. Stray cats having a confrontation in the backyard. By comparison the sound of nothing, not even insects, felt foreign and distracting.

He realized Rhett was right. They couldn’t call for help or run off into the woods. Briefly, Link had even considered stealing the Camry – but obviously it’d be hypocritical to blame the Oregonians for stealing and then steal a whole car himself. Also, Zach had taken the keys with him. But mainly it was the hypocrisy that stopped Link. Not the fact that he couldn’t think of a way to get the keys. Even after thinking about it for an hour. 

To keep the wheels in his mind from turning, he concentrated on the couch beneath him. The cushions were thin and smelled like old newspapers, but he wasn't uncomfortable. He'd slept in far worse places. He looked at the peeling green wallpaper, its pattern indistinguishable in the dark. He looked at the silent, broken clock near the hallway. He looked at the blurry shadow emerging from the hall.

Link groped for his glasses and put them on. 

The shadow was Olivia, hunched over like a creeping mouse.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Are you awake? I wanted to see if you were sleeping...if you needed anything..."

"No, I'm fine."

Olivia hesitated. It seemed that she had more to say, and Link's heart went out to her – this shy, small girl who'd hardly spoken all day. Link switched on the lamp on the end table. Its light was dim, barely more than a nightlight, but it brought the room into focus. He sat up and patted the seat next to him. "Come here."

Olivia came immediately. For once – for the first time, Link realized – she looked him in the eye, quickly, almost hungrily, as if trying to memorize his face. Then she looked down again. She clutched her hands tight in her lap.

"Sorry if I seemed...standoffish." Her voice was very quiet. "It just feels weird to me, that I know everything about you and you know nothing about me."

"Zach said you're a fan?" It was as good a place to start as any.

"Yes," she whispered. "You guys were my childhood."

"What did you like?"

"The 'Will It' episodes. The skits at the end. Any time you talked about your childhood. The ice bath."

Link shifted. "Yeah, we're pretty silly..."

"But that's not all," she said. "I mean, you're funny, but that's not why I watch you." She laced her fingers together hard. "I didn't have the best family. So I liked how you two...seem to like each other, and choose to be together. Watching you was like having two extra dads, except you were there whenever I needed you and were never angry with me. You made me feel...safe." She glanced at him. "I want you to be safe."

"We are safe, here," Link said, but she shook her head.

"California's not safe. I know that's where you want to go, but it's dangerous. You don't understand what it's like..." A tear fell down her cheek. She quickly brushed it away with her sleeve. "What we did to get here. You should have stayed in Chicago."

"Listen," Link whispered. "Our families are still in Los Angeles. You know how you feel now? Wanting to protect someone? Imagine that, but times a thousand. I'm a dad. Looking out for your kids is what dads do."

She nodded, but still wouldn't look at him.

"I think your boyfriend doesn't like us as much," Link said, and she smiled for a second.

"No."

"But you love him."

"He takes care of me." Olivia pulled her sleeves over her hands. "I don't want him to hurt you."

"What?" Link sat up straighter. "Olivia? Why would he hurt us?"

"He wouldn't! No, he wouldn't," she repeated, quieter. "He might be a little jealous of you. But no...as long as you stay here, you're safe." 

Link knew he would get no more out of her. He watched her. She was so young – probably half his age. She could easily be his daughter.

She seemed about to rise from the couch, but hesitated, and then turned towards him. Her voice was so low he could barely hear it. "Could I...get a hug?" 

"Oh! Sure."

She scooted closer to him. As he put his arms around her, he noticed she was quite thin beneath all the layers she wore. She felt so light and breakable, she could have been made of glass.

Olivia wrapped herself tightly around him and buried her face in his shoulder. 

As he held her, Link thought,  _This is fine! ...Okay, now it's uncomfortable. Now it's getting weird_. But as the seconds stretched it seemed Olivia would have been content to stay in his arms indefinitely.

Link broke the hug first. Olivia immediately brought her sleeve to her face again, wiping away tears.

"Thank you," she said softly. "Good night."

Link turned off the lamp and took off his glasses as she padded down the hallway again. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but in the blurry darkness he thought he saw a second shadow at the end of the hall, watching him, until it disappeared with Olivia into the other bedroom.

***

Rhett heard sizzling from the kitchen when he got out of the shower the next morning. He passed by the living room – Link was still asleep on the couch – and found Olivia in the kitchen, just lifting a pan of sliced potatoes off the stove.

"Good morning," she whispered. The kitchen was close to the living room; Rhett figured she was trying to not disturb Link's sleep. "I'm sorry there's no coffee, but...I made breakfast."

Olivia had clearly done her best. There was corned beef hash and baked beans besides the fried potatoes. Rhett assured her it was all great, way more than he'd expected. "You could open a bed and breakfast."

She smiled briefly, not looking at him, but Rhett noticed her smile was pinched and taut. It did not reach her eyes. "When you're finished, Zach wanted your help with the car outside. But please eat first."

She took her jacket off a hook on the kitchen door.

"You're not joining?"

"No." She zipped up her jacket. "I – I need to go for a walk."

It was not yet eight o'clock, and it looked cold and misty outside – not great walking weather. "It'll all be cold when you get back."

"I don't need to eat," she said. "Please...forgive me."

She looked at him now. Rhett couldn't read her expression. 

"Okay, Olivia," he said. "Have a nice walk."

She looked back at him once before leaving the cabin, shutting the screen door behind her.

Rhett thought about waking Link up, but decided against it. His friend needed whatever rest he could get. Instead he dutifully tucked into the breakfast Olivia had made, washed his dishes, and headed out to see what Zach wanted.

 _Stay on his good side_ , he reminded himself as he went out. The sky was gray, and a flock of geese flew above in a perfect V. Rhett noticed Zach had left his rifle leaning on the front porch.

Just as Olivia had said, Zach was tooling around their car. He was staring at the Camry's engine under its open hood. A pack of zip ties poked out of his pocket. "Hey," he said when Rhett approached. 

"Morning. Your girlfriend laid out quite the spread. You should hold onto that one."

Zach grunted. "I intend to. But we've got car trouble. Help me out?"

Staying in their hosts’ good graces was pointless if the car wasn’t working. Rhett came over. Zach opened the driver-side door and crouched down by the steering column. Rhett noticed its plastic covering was already removed. The car's keys were on the seat.

"I think something's up with the starter wire."

"Which one's that?"

Zach looked at him like he'd grown two heads. "The hell? I thought you guys were engineers. You never fixed a car before?"

"Engineers. Not mechanics," Rhett said.

Zach pointed at a bundle of wires leading to a piece of plastic. "This is the wiring harness connector. Goes straight up the middle. This is the battery, the ignition, and the starter wire. Ignition's usually yellow. Battery's always red." He pointed out each wire in the bundle. "That’s why they call it hotwiring. You strip the insulation from the battery wire, connect it to the ignition wire, and touch the starter wire to it. Bet you've never done that either?"

"Can't say I have."

"Only works on old cars anyway. Lots of those in Redding. So. I'll check the wires here. Could you go to the front?"

Rhett moved to the hood. "What am I looking for?"

"Listen to the solenoid. You should hear a click."

Rhett heard nothing. "Nothing's coming."

"Really get in there. It won't be loud."

Rhett leaned further in, placing his ear almost to the battery. "Nothing."

"You sure you're in the right place?"

Rhett heard Zach coming around from the driver's side. "No, there's still noth-"

Suddenly the car hood came crashing down on Rhett's head. Rhett was slammed against the battery so hard he saw stars. 

"What-?!"

Two hands roughly pulled his arms behind his back and zip-tied his wrists together, then dragged him out from under the hood and forced him on his knees.

"What are you doing?!" Rhett spat out. He could taste blood and engine grease on his lips, and his head rang with pain.

"You're going back to Denver."

" _Why_?"

Zach huffed. "People are looking for you and your friend. I turn you in, they might give us a pass for...the things we did to get this far."

 _Like what_? Rhett wondered, but could already guess. The probably-stolen car. The cabin that wasn't theirs. God knew what else they'd done before reaching Colorado. Rhett decided to try a different tack. "Listen, son, you don't want to do this."

"I didn't. Till I caught your friend groping my girl last night. Don't look so surprised," he said as Rhett's shock quickly dropped into skepticism. "She's always had a crush on him...I'm looking forward to turning your ass in–"

" _Let him go._ "

Rhett and Zach both looked towards the porch, and Rhett almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of it. Link was there. With the rifle. Pointed at Zach. Link's dark hair was still ruffled from sleep.

Zach immediately put his hands up. For a long stretch they stared at each other, until suddenly Zach laughed.

"What are you going to do? Look at you! You're shaking!"

Link was shaking – badly. Rhett saw Link's Adam's apple go down as he swallowed hard. "You're right," Link said. "I'm a terrible shot. I might fire a warning shot and wind up blowing your brains out. So back away."

Zach stayed still, but lowered his arms uncertainly. "You're not going to shoot me."

"Don't be so sure." Link moved to turn off the rifle's safety, but touched the wrong place, then had to take his eyes off Zach for a moment to find the switch and flip it. Rhett winced.

"We're doing you a favor," Zach said. "Listen. We're saving your lives, really. This is what Olivia wanted. She _asked_ me to do this. You can't go to LA. You'll die there, or you'll die on the way. You’re no good to your kids dead, right? So let us help you. Let us bring you back to Denver."

"No," Link said. "Back up."

Zach took a step forward. "Look-"

Link fired.

Rhett was pretty sure Link intended to fire over their heads, but as Link had stated, he wasn't a very good shot. Instead the shot rang out like a thunderclap and went straight through the car's antennae, just a few feet away from Zach.

Zach leapt away. "Jesus!" 

"I  _said_ , back up!"

Zach obeyed this time. Rhett got up off his knees. While Link kept his sights on Zach, Rhett got into the passenger side of the Camry. Link got into the driver's seat soon after. The car started up fine. There was nothing wrong with it.

Link did not peel out of the driveway. He reversed carefully while Zach stayed put, watching them. Link scrupulously kept the speed limit until they reached the interstate, when he finally hit the gas.

Rhett let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Dude," he said. "You just stole their car."

"Are you okay?" Link asked. His hands were tight on the steering wheel.

Rhett checked himself in the visor mirror. His mouth was still bleeding and an impressive bruise had formed on his cheek, but considering the alternatives... "I'm fine." He turned to Link. "Are  _you_  okay?"

Link was unusually pale. "I...I would have killed him," he said. "If he tried to hurt you again, I would have shot that kid. This isn't right, man. It's not right."

“How did you know to come out?”

“I found a head in the freezer.”

“You found a _what_?”

“The head. Of a zombie. They killed a zombie. They were going to the checkpoint yesterday to turn it in for a bounty. The bag Olivia was carrying.” Link shook his head. He was still shaking. "It's not right," he repeated.

Rhett didn't want Link to dwell on it. He shifted in his seat. It was hard to find a comfortable position with his hands still zip-tied behind him. "Let's think of the next step. How are we doing?"

Link let out one short, mirthless laugh. "How are we doing? We're driving a stolen car with a stolen gun. We have no money, no phones, and no IDs."

Rhett thought for a moment. "We could start selling ice cream sandwiches."

Link laughed out loud, genuinely this time, and Rhett was relieved to hear it. Rhett continued, "We don't have to worry about unleashing the zombie apocalypse this time! Because it already happened! Besides, you forgot one thing we have: a plan. Where are we?"

"I-70," Link said. "This'll take us into Utah."

"Then drive on, man."


	5. The San Rafael Swell

They drove for hours.

By noon they were out of Colorado and into Utah. Rhett watched pine forests give way to bare rock, rolling hills to canyons, and finally dark green to the reds and tans of sandstone and shale. This was the San Rafael Swell: a rocky landscape of valleys, canyons, and gorges.

They had to stop once so Rhett could get the zip tie off his wrists. (This was surprisingly difficult, and it took a quarter hour, a lot of grunting, and a conveniently sharp stone for Rhett to finally break it.) Otherwise they drove without stopping. 

Rhett noticed they were the only ones on the road. There were zombies in Utah, last he'd heard, but the state wasn't under strict quarantine yet. He didn't know if the cities were evacuated or on lockdown. He had tried the radio, but they couldn't hear anything since Link had busted the antennae.

"I miss music," Link said as Rhett twisted the dial again. Nothing, not even static, came through.

"Music didn't die, buddy. It still exists. We just can't listen to it right now."

"No, I mean...I haven't listened to music since this all started. I don't think you have either. It's just not possible to enjoy it when there's so much else to think about."

Rhett thought about this as the scenery passed. They had nothing but time. He didn't have to hurry a response.

"I don't think you need to 'enjoy' music," he said finally. "That makes it sound frivolous. People sing at protest marches. The first Christians sang hymns when they were thrown to the lions. It's not always happy. It's a way to keep going."

"Are we getting philosophical now?" Link asked. "Then what's our hymn for the apocalypse?"

" _Ain't nothing gonna break my stride.._." Rhett sang.

Link laughed, but he joined in harmony for the rest. " _Nobody's gonna slow me down, oh no, I've got to keep on moving.._."

Despite the encouragement, Rhett was keeping a wary eye on the fuel gauge. They had been lucky: the tank was more than half full when they left the cabin. Now it was getting uncomfortably close to empty. They hadn't seen a town in ages, had no phones to call for help – and Rhett was pretty sure no one wanted to help two identity-less car thieves anyway.

"Next gas station you find, man..." he started.

"I saw that," Link said. "Even if we find a working gas station – and this place could be Mars for all the people we've seen – how are we paying for it?"

Rhett glanced at Link's wedding ring.

"No," Link said.

Rhett glanced at the rifle in the backseat.

"No," Link said. "Not pawning that either."

Rhett paused. "I wasn't thinking of pawning it," he said slowly.

Link blew air out through his nose, hard. He did not reply.

The gauge fell steadily down to E. The desert sunlight was punishing, hot and white, making mirages shimmer in the distance. Rhett adjusted his car visor again.

"Is that...?" he asked.

"It is," Link said. 

It was a gas station – a lonely one set near the overhanging lip of a small canyon. There were no cars by its pumps. It looked closed.

Link parked in the lot. Both got out. The lights were off in the store, but the door was unlocked. 

When they came in, it was clear someone had been here before – and left in a hurry. Some items were still on the shelves, but many others were missing. A trail of popcorn littered the floor. The slushee machine had long since stopped, and the dyed flavors had sunk to the bottom with a layer of cloudy water on top. The whole store smelled faintly of spoiled milk.

"No one's been here in a while," Rhett said. "So...free game?"

"Sure," Link said, though he still looked doubtful.

"Don't worry. We're not looting. We're scavenging!"

Rhett quickly scanned the shelves for the most useful items. They needed food and water, of course. Junk food and soda was worth stocking if it was all they had. There were some fix-it kits and tools in a small display. Rhett noticed a flathead screwdriver and pocketed it. In another aisle, there was an assortment of coloring books, water guns, cheap plastic pogo sticks, and tin harmonicas. Rhett palmed a harmonica. It was surprisingly heavy.

"Hey!" Link said suddenly, startling him.

Rhett came over. Link was staring at a shelf with a look of awe on his face, as if he'd just seen God. He turned to Rhett with eyes full of joy.

"They have Frosted Mini-Wheats!" he said.

***

After they'd loaded up the car with whatever seemed useful, they had to deal with the reason they'd stopped in the first place: how to refuel the car.

None of the pumps worked. Obviously the power was off, but Rhett and Link also came to the embarrassing realization that neither of them knew how gas traveled from the underground tank all the way to the nozzle.

They decided to start with the tank. Rhett went back inside the store. The door to the supply room was torn off its hinges, but he found a crowbar on the floor, tipped with some maroon stains. Once outside he was able to pry off the small manhole cover that led to the tank.

Rhett and Link peered down into black oblivion. They couldn't see the bottom. 

"So how do we get it from there to here?" Link asked.

Rhett thought hard. The only sounds were the soft desert breeze, and equally soft munching: Link was about halfway through a box of cereal.

"Link," Rhett said, "I have an idea."

"Oh great," Link said. Rhett chose to ignore the lack of enthusiasm.

Going back in, Rhett soon returned with a long coil of hose and a jerry can. "You know how people steal gas from other cars' tanks?"

"I'm happy to say I have no personal experience with that," Link said.

"Well, you're about to. Siphoning: it's just like sucking coke up through a straw. So...do you want to rock-paper-scissors it?"

Link gave him a look of pure disgust. He still agreed to the game, however – and lost. Link held the hose gingerly, like it was a dead worm, and slowly lowered it into the tank.

The air smelled strongly of gas fumes. "You know," Rhett said, "There is a not insignificant chance that we wind up blowing ourselves up."

"Yeah, so don't light a cigarette while I'm doing this!"

"I don't even smoke, man."

"If either one of us is going to light a match just to see what happens, it'd be you."

Rhett didn't reply, but after that quip he did take satisfaction in watching Link struggle. Link sucked, squirmed, scrunched up near the hole, and suddenly detached from the hose with a hacking cough.

"Did you get it?" Rhett asked.

"No," Link choked out. He punched his own chest, lay down on the ground, and put a hand over his eyes. "Nothing but fumes. It might kill us. And also I'm like, ninety percent positive this isn't how siphoning works." He quieted down for a moment. "What we need is a pump."

"Dude, if there'd been a pump in there I would've taken it."

Again Link was quiet for a while. Then he frowned with determination. "We can make one."

Link got up off the ground and went back into the store. He was gone for a long time. When he returned, he had two bouncy balls, a pogo stick, a broom, and a roll of duct tape.

Link untwisted the broom, removing the bristles and handgrip so that he was left with just the hollow plastic handle. He started to take apart the pogo stick too.

"What are you doing?"

"A pogo stick's just a piston," Link said. "If we use it to create a vacuum, gas should go up through the pipe..." He nodded at the broom handle. "...and into the hose."

"And the balls?"

"I need to make check valves so the gas goes in, but won't flow out." He looked at Rhett. "Come on, this is basic hydraulics. You did better in that class than I did."

"College was twenty years ago, man."

Rhett caught on quickly, however. They used the balls and leftover parts from the pogo stick to make two valves, then connected their homemade pump together. The broom handle dipped into the tank; the outlet was duct-taped to the hose, which led to the jerry can. 

Link grimaced at his own work. "This looks like something out of 'There, I Fixed It.'"

"Well. We're kind of white trash anyway, so that works."

"We're a little better than that. We're...white recyclables. 'Repurposed White.'"

"Sure, let's get that on a T-shirt," Rhett said, and pushed the plunger in.

Gas rushed smoothly into the jerry can with a satisfying splash. Both stared at the can.

"Link," said Rhett, "Have I told you lately that I love you?"

***

They filled as many containers as they could and loaded up the Camry. This meant moving some of the food they’d taken to the side.

As Link Tetris’d their supplies into a neater configuration, Rhett hefted up a king size bag of M&Ms in his palm. “When I was a kid,” Rhett said, “I remember looking at a bag of M&Ms and thinking, ‘When I grow up, I’m going to buy an entire bag and eat it all by myself.’ That was what adulthood meant to me. Not having to share my M&Ms.” 

“I remember wishing I had someone to share my M&Ms with,” Link said.

“What…what are you talking about? You had me!”

“Yeah, but you weren’t there all the time. I didn’t live with you.”

“You were at my house more often than I was!”

Link closed the trunk. "Want to do a final check?"

They entered the store one last time. The last time he was in, Rhett hadn't gone far inside the supply room. Now he went past the broken door. 

The crowbar he'd retrieved from the floor, which was now safe in the Camry, had maroon stains on its tip. Rhett saw the brown-ish spots were all over the floor. They led to the back door.

Rhett tried the handle. It was unlocked. He opened the door.

The smell hit him before the sight, but as repulsive as both were he couldn’t turn away. Rhett stared for a long moment.

"Link?" he said.

"What?" 

His friend came next to him, and at the sight – and stench – suddenly retched. He turned away, but Rhett kept staring.

On the dry ground in front of them was a woman. Her head was tilted at an unnatural angle, the neck broken. Flesh had been torn from her limbs and ribs, letting flies crawl on exposed bone. The sticky remains of rotting entrails festered in her abdomen.

Rhett understood now what had happened. She was in the store – maybe an employee. Zombies had come. She had locked herself in the supply room. They had ripped off the door; she had fended them off with the crowbar, but lost. They had dragged her out and eaten her.

"Let's  _go_ ," said Link. 

He walked away, but Rhett stayed for a moment more. Who was she? Did her family even know she was gone?

How many bodies like this were in the streets of Los Angeles?

***

"Have you heard of a prison burrito?" Rhett asked.

Link woke up from a reverie. He'd spent the last forty miles or so staring out the window, trying to forget what they'd seen at the store. There was something innately, instinctively wrong about seeing a human body flayed. This was what California had seen. Maybe his family had already faced it – and at that thought, he had to fight down a fresh wave of fear and revulsion.

"No," he said to Rhett. "What's that?"

"It's a meal you make out of stuff you get at a prison commissary. You get a bag of Doritos, ramen, and Cheez-Its – crush it all up – and add hot water, and it becomes a burrito."

"What?" Link said. "The one essential element of a burrito is the tortilla. Anything can be burrito'd if you have a tortilla. That's not a burrito. That's a prison tamale, at best." He turned towards Rhett. "Are you thinking of trying it?"

"Why not? We've got all the ingredients. Need to do something for dinner tonight."

"I don't see how any of that is improved by cooking. I would happily eat just a bag of Doritos, or a pack of ramen."

"Didn't say I was going to share with you, princess," Rhett said. "You'll be eating your words when I have a fresh, Taco Bell-inspired meal in front of me."

"I swear you have the guts of a raccoon." Link couldn't even think of eating now. He returned to staring out the window.

Something white slithered along the ground far ahead of them.

Rhett saw it too. “Is that a banner?”

“Maybe?” It seemed to be a long strip of cloth, with something written on it in red spray paint. It shimmied across the ground until it caught on a rock. Besides the road, it was the only manmade thing in the whole vista.

Rhett coasted the Camry to the shoulder.

"Wait – you're stopping?"

"I want to check it out…I thought I recognized a word. Also, I'm making a burrito."

"But–"

Rhett put the car in park and faced Link. "Look. We've driven for hours, and we've seen nothing, right? And I hate to bring it up, but that woman had been dead for a while. Like, days, at least. As far as I can tell zombies have cleared out of the area."

"But..."

"It's only going to get worse from here, Link!" Rhett said as he opened his door. "Enjoy the peace while it lasts!"

Rhett retrieved the rifle and his ingredients from the backseat, then wandered – as far as Link was concerned – alarmingly far from the car.

Link fought with himself for a while. Then, finally, he got out too. It seemed somehow cowardly to stay in the car when Rhett was outside, openly defying death. 

Rhett crushed up his meal in the Doritos bag first, then attended to the swaying white cloth. It was a banner. He kicked out its twists and folds until the message was clear. The words were bright as blood.

“‘There is safety in Zion,’” Rhett read. “What the hell?”

“Same as the prayer card…” Link said. 

“Who’s leaving this message? And _why_?”

“Maybe some apocalypse cult?”

“Wait...” Rhett said. “Remember the camp in Omaha? Didn’t that woman say a couple in _Ogden_ gave her the card? Like Ogden, Utah?”

Link couldn’t remember what she’d said to them. He looked around. On the left side of the interstate, there was a steep dropoff that overlooked buttes and mesas in the distance. On the right, Link saw a wide, craggy plain, with dusty plants hiding in shadowed hollows. The sky near the horizon was pink and lavender. The sun would set soon. 

Link thought of meerkats: how they would all stand in a line to watch for predators. He felt like that now, nervous and twitchy as a hunted rodent. But there was nothing out here. A passing shadow – just a tree branch in the breeze. A flicker of movement in the corner of his eye – just a lizard darting beneath a rock. Three dark spots crossing the plain – birds? Coyotes? 

"Rhett?" 

"Mm?" Rhett was some ways behind him, still looking at the banner.

"Get in the car."

"What?"

"Get in the car!"

The three zombies – there was no doubting it now – had spotted them. 

Link got into the door that was closest to him – the backseat – seconds before Rhett got into the driver's seat. He watched with terror and fascination as the zombies shot across the ground. They moved like wolves, faster than any human could run, with an unnatural loping gait. In a second they collided with the car.

"Rhett!"

"I know!" Rhett said. He started the car and gunned the accelerator – just as the zombies got their claws on the Camry. Link had a perfect view of their gray skin and bloodied claws. One dry, dead tongue dragged across the window by Link's face. The car rocked.

"What the  _hell!"_

"They're trying to-" Link said, but was interrupted as the car toppled to its side. 

Link fell hard on his arm while the zombies outside howled with lust.

_Trapped_ , Link thought. He grabbed the crowbar that had rolled to the floor.

Link banged wildly at the sky-facing window. Nothing happened. He hit again, and shut his eyes as the glass above him shattered and rained down on his head. 

As a bigger man in a tighter space, Rhett was having more trouble maneuvering himself, but Link saw him using the rifle butt to crack the glass on the driver-side window. Link climbed out of the backseat. 

For a second he almost lost his balance, standing on the door of a tipped-over car. The zombies surrounded him.

Link swung at them with the crowbar. "Back!"

He connected with one, square on the jaw, but it only came back again. He swung again, and hooked the crowbar into one zombie's mouth. He pulled – hard.

Half of a rotting mandible flew out of the dead creature. It roared, seemingly more in anger than pain, and grabbed at the crowbar.

Link fell immediately at its strength. Another zombie grabbed one of Link's legs. He could feel its cold, vise-like fingers through his jeans, pulling him in.

The zombie opened its mouth wide for a bite–

–and its head suddenly exploded in a firework of blood and sharp bits of bone.

Link turned around. While he'd distracted the zombies, Rhett had broken out, slipped onto the ground, and had just fired a bullet into a zombie's brain. 

Link let go of the crowbar and fell onto the ground next to Rhett. Rhett pulled him up.

The two remaining zombies raced around the trunk.

Later – much later – Link would theorize this is what happened:

Rhett had accelerated hard just as the zombies reached them. The car had been damaged when it toppled over. Somehow, fuel had dumped into its exhaust system. When the fuel reached the hot pipes, it ignited.

Normally, that would only mean a flash of fire out the tailpipe. But the car was damaged. It was leaking. And there were gallons of gasoline in the trunk. 

However it happened – just as the zombies were coming around the side, the car suddenly erupted into a fireball. Billowing, roaring flames filled all of Link's senses.

"Holy shit!" he said, but Rhett grabbed his wrist.

"Don't look back! Just run!"

Despite Rhett's warning, Link did look back once. The two zombies had caught on fire and were flailing on the ground. The Camry's flames were meters high.

Rhett and Link ran.

***

They had run as long as they could before slowing to a jog, then a walk. They headed west.

Again the scenery changed. Slowly, more trees began to dot the landscape – short, scrawny desert trees with twisted arthritic limbs. Eventually there were enough of them to call it a forest.

Link found the trees reassuring. Logically, he knew trees would make zombies harder to spot, but they felt like shelter instead. Trees could provide cover. Trees could hide them.

It was a long time before Rhett finally said, "I'm sorry. Stopping was stupid."

"I'm glad you're okay," Link said. "I mean, in a while I'll be  _pissed_. But right now I'm just glad we're alive."

They kept walking. 

The ground led uphill. The trees became taller, more green – more forestlike.

Rhett stopped. 

"What?" Link said.

"Check it out," Rhett said. "A trap."

Link looked down. At the bottom of a tree, there was a small rabbit in a metal trap. There must be people in the area.

"Dinner?" Rhett said.

Daylight was fading fast. When they inspected the area more, they saw it was a good campsite: a creek ran nearby, and there was a small clearing where they could lie down. Presumably whoever set the trap would come by soon. Maybe they would meet more survivors.

Making a simple campfire and cleaning the rabbit was actually the easiest thing they had to do that day. 

"What do you have on you?" Rhett asked. 

"Nothing. You?"

"I still have my burrito," Rhett said, and laughed. "The rifle. A screwdriver. And..." He felt for his back pocket, and took out – a tin harmonica. "Hey. Forgot I took this."

Link reached out for it. He tested a few notes as Rhett prepared to cook the rabbit and his prison burrito, using his screwdriver as a crude knife.

"Tastes like...marshmallows," Link said. "No, seriously. This harmonica tastes like marshmallows."

"Maybe you just want s'mores."

Link stared at the fire as the rabbit cooked. He was exhausted enough that the bare ground sounded perfectly comfortable. It was hard to believe that just that morning, they'd been snug in a cabin in Colorado. 

"Want to play a game?" Rhett asked.

"Really?"

"It'd pass the time."

"Like what?"

"Twenty Questions? Six degrees? Truth or Dare?"

Link shook his head. "We can't play that game."

"Why not?"

"Because we've been friends for a million years. I know everything about you."

Rhett was oddly quiet. "You don't know  _everything_  about me."

"Fine," Link said. "Modified version. Just truths. First person to say something the other person doesn't know gets the rabbit. Loser has to eat your nasty not-tamale."

"So there's no way I can lose."

"You first."

"Okay," Rhett said. He thought – or maybe pretended to think – for a while. A drop of fat popped and sizzled on the fire.

"When I was six," Rhett said, "I had something against one of the school librarians. I forget why; maybe she was mean to me when I had a book overdue. So I went into those old card catalog drawers they used to have, and mixed up all the cards. I think it took them weeks to sort it all out."

"I know!" Link said. "I was there! It was Miss Halpert, and she was mad at you because you drew mustaches on all the presidents. Even the ones that already had mustaches."

"Oh, right! The poster in the reading room. I forgot about that."

Link could still remember the little child-sized chairs in the library. "In your defense," he said, "Calvin Coolidge did look a lot better with a mustache."

"Your turn."

"Okay." He stopped for a moment, then decided to go ahead: "I’ve noticed whenever the crew has a problem, they go to you instead of me. And I resent that.”

“It’s ‘cuz you’re a hard ass,” Rhett said.

“Hey!”

“Oh, sorry. It’s because you are perceived to be a hard ass. Was that better?”

Link thought about this while Rhett wiped off the screwdriver with a leaf. “I know I can be intimidating, but I try to listen…”

“You think you’re intimidating,” Rhett repeated dryly.

“Sure. Like when people weren’t washing their dishes? I brought down the hammer.”

“You left passive-aggressive notes in the kitchen.” Rhett tossed the sticky leaves away. “Look, you’re not unapproachable. Everyone loves you. But you have a tendency to micromanage. It’s all part of your insistence that there’s a best way to do things. I just tell people what needs to be done, and if it gets done, I don’t ask questions. That’s their job, not mine.”

Link had the uncomfortable suspicion that Rhett had a point. “But did you know that? Before I told you?”  

“Let’s just say you’re not good at hiding resentment,” Rhett said cheerfully. “Yes, I knew.”

"Fine. Your turn."

Link had barely thought about the fate of their company since the outbreak had started. He’d had bigger things to worry about. Now he realized he and Rhett might not have a company anymore. He didn’t even know if their employees had made it out.

But the company didn’t matter, really. If they could get back to work after all this, great. If they couldn’t, he and Rhett would just reinvent themselves. They’d done it before. They could do it again. All that mattered was getting out of this alive. 

Rhett snapped a twig and threw it on the fire. "I guess..." he started. "I guess I should have told you this a long time ago."

"What?" Link thought Rhett was stalling, but when he looked Rhett's face was perfectly serious. "What, Rhett?" he asked, quieter.

"I don't know why I kept it to myself. It just seemed like it wouldn't do you any good."

Link looked him in the eye. "I'm not scared. You don't need to protect me."

Rhett's eyes were clear. Link could see straight to the bottom of them, like a pond on a sunlit day. It looked to him like the clarity of sadness: the kind of grief and regret that collapse in from both sides and leave you with only one way forward. 

Then in a moment it was gone. Rhett broke the contact. He looked down, cleared his throat, and said: "I think it’s weird how you treat your dog like a person.”

“ _What_?”

“The dog doesn’t _have_ to go with you on vacation. You’re its owner, not its parent. And you carry it around with you in a bag? Who do you think you are, Paris Hilton?”

“Just because I count pets as family members doesn’t mean I can’t tell the difference between dogs and humans.”

“You call your kids by your dog’s name sometimes,” Rhett pointed out.

“Okay, that’s different. They share a category. They’re all ‘small living things I need to feed and shelter.’”

“I’m sure they’re thrilled to be in the same box.”

Link was starting to get annoyed – and then decided not to be. Of course Rhett knew how to push his buttons. He’d installed most of them. “You know what? Nope. I’m not getting a lecture on logical consistency from the reigning king of compartmentalization.”

“My regnal name is Rhetticus the Brave,” Rhett said, and poked the campfire with a stick. "So did you know what I thought about your dog?”

“No.”

“Oh hey, I guess I win."

"At least mine was a heartfelt confession," Link said. "Yours was just criticism."

The rabbit had finished cooking. Rhett took it off their makeshift spit. "Here, take half."

Link lifted an eyebrow. "These games are meaningless if you don't take your reward."

"I did. It's mine. Winner gets to do whatever he wants with it. I want to share with you."

As they settled in for the night on opposite sides of the fire, Link reflected that whatever Rhett had wanted to confess, he hadn't said it out loud. The whole discussion about dogs was just a distraction.

Rhett was hiding something from him.


	6. Zion

Years ago, Rhett and Link found a waterfall on a hike.

Link couldn't remember how old they were – thirteen or fourteen, maybe – or whether they were with friends or Rhett's family, or even exactly where they were hiking. None of that mattered anyway. What did matter was this: it was a sticky hot afternoon. He and Rhett had been alone for a while, going far off-trail, when they found the edge of a cliff. A pool swirled below, fed by a waterfall on the far side.

Link remembered the waterfall was unimpressive. Maybe in early spring after the snowmelt it'd be more picturesque, but now, in late summer, the waterfall had about as much volume as a bathtub faucet. Still the pool below looked deep. He remembered getting on his hands and knees to look over the edge while Rhett, who didn't like heights, stayed a step behind; and he remembered being proud to do something Rhett wouldn't.

"How deep do you think it is?" Rhett asked.

"Maybe fifteen, twenty feet?"

He remembered it was so hot that their T-shirts clung to their backs, that the bright sun made the sparkling water almost painful to look at, and that insects whirred and creaked so that the forest all around buzzed with teeming life.

Rhett said, "I'm going in."

"I thought-" Link started to say, as Rhett took off his shirt and shoes, "I thought – aren't you scared?"

"That's why," Rhett said.

In Link's memory the cliff was ludicrously high, but in reality it probably wasn't more than ten feet. Still plenty high enough, really. But there was no stopping Rhett once he'd made up his mind to do something. He hesitated only a moment at the edge, dangling his feet over, then shut his eyes tight and pushed himself off.

The splash was even louder than Link expected. For a second Rhett disappeared beneath the foaming ripples. Then he bobbed up again, laughing and wiping water from his eyes. "The water's really warm! You should try it!"

"I don't know..."

Link didn't mind heights, but he was mindful of many other things. Swift currents. Hidden rocks. Brain-eating amoebas. Rhett was all for taking risks; Link wanted certain guarantees. So he hesitated while Rhett submerged again.

"It's really deep," Rhett said, once back up. "Floating here's just like floating in any other pool, you know? The water will hold you."

"How do you know there isn't, like, broken glass at the bottom?"

"Come on, Link."

Link was full of doubts. But this is what mattered, in the end: he didn't trust the water. He didn't really believe that it would hold him.

But he trusted Rhett.

Rhett whooped when Link dove in.

***

Link was thinking of this as he checked for poison ivy on the ground.

He’d woken up cold, hungry, and sore in every limb. His clothes were damp with dew. He also needed to use the bathroom. Luckily he could take care of one of those things immediately.

When he’d put his glasses back on he saw that Rhett was frowning in his sleep. Link watched him for just a moment. He had promised to be pissed at Rhett later, but now it was the next morning and he still didn’t feel angry. Instead he felt immensely tired. _Rhetticus the Brave?_ he thought warily. _More like Rhetticus the Reckless_.

Nothing had changed in all the decades since. Rhett was still leading him into danger, and he still chose to follow.

Link noted with some amusement that the harmonica was still in his jacket pocket. The weight was oddly reassuring. It was now the one thing he owned besides clothes.

Now, as he wandered from camp and checked for poison ivy, he remembered how the whole forest had seemed alive then. Here it was the same. The birdsong was maddening, like every branch had a tiny microphone. He and Rhett had been alone then too. Of course, then it’d been an adventure, and now it was…a nightmare.

Link finished his business and turned around.

 _Oh, for fuck’s sake_ , he thought.

A zombie stood thirty feet away – swaying, emaciated, bloodstains on her ragged dress. One ankle was broken, causing her to stand with uneven shoulders.

The sight of her was like an espresso shot. Immediately Link’s fingers tingled with adrenaline, ready to fight or flee, but in a second he realized she wasn’t moving. She stood still, as if entranced.

She was not looking at him. She was looking at–

Rhett, still asleep. The zombie's head was cocked, but she seemed not to see him. Link remembered:  _The undead seem to have excellent hearing, particularly for higher pitches. Their vision relies on detecting movement rather than color_. Maybe she could smell a human in front of her, but still, silent Rhett was hard to make out between the trees.

Heart thumping, Link watched as Rhett breathed deeply, in and out, then relaxed his sleeping frown, then turned–

The zombie stepped forward–

Link snatched the harmonica out of his pocket and blew.

His intention was to blow out a high pitch. Instead it came out like a honk: like the sneeze of a cartoon donkey. But it worked. The zombie snapped around and laid her eyes on him.

For half a second, Link felt triumphant. Rhett was safe for another moment. He had gained the zombie's attention.

Then he realized he had gained a zombie's attention.

"Aaaaah!" he yelled as he crashed downhill through the underbrush, a hungry zombie ten paces behind him.

***

Rhett was woken up by the oddest birdcall.

It sounded like a weirdly melodic sneeze. But when he opened his eyes, he saw Link was gone.

For ten minutes he thought perhaps Link had gone to use the bathroom, or even find breakfast like a good boy scout. But when half an hour, then an hour passed, Rhett began to worry.

He paced around their campsite. The ground was dry. There were no tracks. He heard nothing but birds. Had Link fallen and gotten injured somewhere? Was he lying helpless with a broken leg, waiting for Rhett to find him? Had he gone off and been eaten by – bears? Wolves? Zombies? If he hadn't, where was he? If he had, would they come back for more?

An hour and a half passed.

There was no way Link was still safe. Either he was hurt – in which case, Rhett needed to find him – or he was lost. If he was lost, ideally he’d find his way back to the campsite eventually. But Rhett didn’t need to stay here waiting for him. He could leave a note.

 _God, McLaughlin, you’re an idiot_ , he thought to himself.   

The ground was sandy, but it was his only option. He dug the words in deep. _L, if you see this STAY PUT. Went to look for you. BRB. -R_.

Rhett took the rifle and screwdriver with him. He decided to walk only twenty minutes from the campsite, in every direction. He couldn’t risk both of them getting lost. Maybe he’d find clues.

The night had been cold, but the morning was warm – probably approaching eighty degrees. Rhett followed the creek south.

In a few minutes the creek widened out to a shallow river. Red sandstone cliffs rose on either side, with skinny pines clinging to every crevice. Cattails, willow trees, and moss-covered rocks all crowded the sandy banks. But there were no signs that anyone had been here before him.

Rhett was about to turn back when a bit of cloth caught his eye. A human was lying down on the ground. At first his heart leapt up – _Is it Link?_ – but in a second he saw it couldn’t be.

It was a very thin girl in a bloodied dress. Rhett saw that one of her ankles was broken: a sharp nail stuck out of the heel of one bare foot. He also saw that she wasn’t just lying on the ground. She was staked to it. Two short wooden spears were lodged deep into her abdomen.

For all that, she seemed to have been dead for a while. Her bare arms and legs were ghostly white, and her unseeing eyes were still open. Rhett stepped closer.  

One dead eye rolled towards him, and blinked.

Rhett stumbled back. His leg hit against a long, taut string. Something _cracked_ – and a branch swung violently towards him.

Rhett tried to move out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough.

Two stakes – exactly like the ones impaling the zombie – bolted towards his leg and pinned him to the ground. For one panicked moment Rhett thought they’d actually bit into his thigh, but no, he was lucky: the stakes had come down on either side of his leg. He was trapped, but not injured.

“ _Grrrrr…_ ”

He looked back at the zombie. She was growling with a low, deep gurgle. Black blood dribbled out of her mouth. She stretched one arm towards him.

 _Even a scratch can transmit the virus_ , he remembered. The zombie’s fingers crawled towards him like spiders. Rhett had dropped his rifle. He tried to reach for it now, but his pinned leg made it hard to stretch.

The zombie grinned at him with bloodstained teeth. Her wounds make a sucking sound as she writhed against the stakes holding her down.

“Hey!”

Rhett turned towards the shout.

Three people were jogging down the riverbank: two men and one woman. One man was young, maybe college age. The other man and woman seemed to be in their early forties. All were armed.

Rhett expected more preliminaries – maybe a struggle, or gunfire. He did not expect that the woman would simply walk up to the zombie, unsheathe a hunting knife, and stab it in the throat.

The zombie shrieked. Rhett flinched back as the woman sawed through the soft tissues until the zombie was, essentially, decapitated. The zombie stopped twitching. Blood soaked the sandy soil.   

The woman stood back up again, not even breathing hard. Then she turned her eyes to Rhett.

Rhett wanted to thank her, but something about her expression told him not to speak unless spoken to. She looked him up and down appraisingly. "So you're the one who stole our rabbit," she said.

Rhett was not sorry. "Sorry," he said.

The woman turned to her companions. "Strip him."

"Wha-?"

The other two immediately set on Rhett. One pulled the stakes out while the other hauled him to his feet. Then the younger secured Rhett's hands behind his back while the older man, with cold efficiency, unzipped and pulled down Rhett’s pants and his underwear with it, removed his socks and shoes, and peeled off his shirt.

"Is this necessary?” Rhett asked. “It was one rabbit!"

Rhett was now completely nude. The older man scanned his body. "He's clean," he said.

They returned his clothes. Rhett yanked them back on.

"Sorry," the woman said, and Rhett could sense the apology was as insincere as his own. "Too many survivors came in with hidden wounds. They'd swear they were fine when they were hiding a bite under their clothes, and turn into a zombie in a few hours. We need to check." She picked up his rifle and unloaded all its bullets into her palm. “You come here alone, big guy?”

Rhett pulled on his shirt. He was indignant, but on the other hand, they had, perhaps, saved his life. “No, I have a friend, but we got separated. Maybe you’ve seen him? He's my age, six feet, kinda thin, black hair, blue eyes."

She smiled. "Sounds handsome."

Rhett thought a moment, then shrugged. "Well. He's kind of a dork."

"We haven't seen your friend. But if you're lucky, someone else found him and brought him home. Speaking of which.” She nodded to her companions. “They’ll check our other traps. I’ll bring you back.”

“Hell no! I’m not going anywhere without him. Forget zombies, the only thing I’m scared of is–”

He was going to say abandoning his friend, but the younger man interjected, “Ceiling fans?”

The wind was taken right out of Rhett’s sails. “Seriously? We’re doing tall jokes now? Kid, I was your height at one point. It wasn’t that great.”

The woman looked on the verge of laughter. Then her expression sobered up. “Listen. We can't have people wandering alone out here. It's too dangerous – for them and us. Now,” she said, “there’s three of us, and you’re out of ammo. Are you going to be difficult? Or are you gonna play nice?”

Rhett looked at the three survivors. He didn’t have a choice.

"Where is 'here?'" he asked.

"Zion," she said. "Zion National Park."

***

The woman introduced herself as Wendy after the two men left. “The place’s full of traps like the one you just tripped,” she told Rhett. “Some for animals. Some for zombies. Another reason we can’t have you wandering off.”

Wendy and Rhett walked carefully through the woods until they reached a clear, paved path. The red mountains surrounding them glowed in the morning light. Rhett breathed in deep. The breeze smelled fresh, sun-baked and spicy with ponderosa pine. It reminded him of the time he visited Death Valley with Link, a few years and a lifetime ago.

“What do you do for work, Rhett?” Wendy asked.

Rhett and Link’s answer to this always depended on context. If they were with people who had no idea who they were, Link usually said they ran a production company in Burbank. Rhett preferred to say, “We eat barely digestible food for the amusement of strangers.” He liked to lead with absurdity. But to Wendy he just said, “I make funny videos for YouTube."

“There’s a living in that?”

“Honestly, I’m as surprised as you.” They began walking uphill. “What is ‘Zion’? I keep seeing signs saying there’s safety here.”

She shrugged. “Zion's isolated enough that we haven't seen too many zombies yet. The larger cities get quarantined. The smaller towns get forgotten. Most people here are from small towns, headed east. But some people,” she said, “are here to stay.”

They came finally over the last hill. For a moment sunlight slanted straight into Rhett's eyes. He blinked, then squinted, then realized the vista in front of him was real.

Below him should have been normal campgrounds. He could see small cabins for restrooms and even, off in the distance, a concession area with abandoned booths and food trucks. But the place was filled far beyond capacity. Every plot held four or five tents, or ramshackle shelters made of mud and timber. There were people in cars. There were people in booths. There were people everywhere. And yet, he could see there was an order to it. Almost everyone was doing something productive: building new shelters, hauling water, clearing trash. It was truly a small town.   

A deep trench was dug around the campgrounds. Rhett could make out spikes planted at the bottom. In front of the trench were bent-over trees, tied to the ground, with their outward-facing branches trimmed and sharpened. And in front of that were many, many plots of freshly turned soil. Shallow graves.  

It all showed a near-military sense of planning. This wasn’t just a stop for refugees needing for shelter.  

“This is a hunters’ camp,” Rhett said out loud. “It’s a place for people who want to kill zombies.”

"When the government can’t protect you, you need to protect yourself,” Wendy said. “Let's get you fed up, and then we'll talk about what you can do."

 _Do_? Rhett thought.

Wendy brought him to the settlement. He was allowed a shower. He was offered food. He checked maps posted on signboards, saw this camp was only one of many, and tried to memorize the Park's roads. He asked around the settlement. Most were from Arizona or Utah; they had no advice for going further west. He was not the only newcomer, but no one had seen anyone who looked like Link.

Day turned to dusk. Little fires began to glow in the different campsites. After hours of fruitless interviews, Rhett was tired, and a heavy worry had molded and solidified around his heart like concrete. He found Wendy's fire; other survivors were gathered around, sitting on lawnchairs or the ground. Rhett’s rifle – and a guitar – both leaned against Wendy’s tent. He planned to retrieve his weapon, then changed his mind, picked up the guitar, and joined the circle.

He started tuning it. It did feel good to hold a guitar again. It felt almost normal. 

The others waited until he strummed a perfect G chord to ask who he was. Rhett introduced himself. It felt a bit like college again. Music set the tone. He wondered what he could play that everyone knew, and could sing along to, and would agree was completely appropriate for the end of the world.

"Hey," he said, "anyone here like Hank Williams Junior?"

Some people laughed, but they stopped when he actually launched into "A Country Boy Can Survive." By the end of the first verse Rhett suspected he was only being obnoxious, and started to sweat – but then others, and soon the whole circle, joined for the chorus.

 _What I miss most is music_ , Rhett remembered.

The others tossed in requests after that. Queen. Taylor Swift. The Beatles – no one knew the exact words to "Across the Universe." When they got to James Taylor the others quieted down until it was only Rhett singing. " _Won't you look down upon me, Jesus. You've got to help me make a stand. You've just got to see me through another day_..."

Rhett didn't start another song after finishing. He strummed quiet, tuneless chords, feeling oddly ashamed. 

"That was nice," Wendy said. “We could always use more music around here.” 

Rhett said, "I'm not staying. I'm making my way to Los Angeles."

The circle suddenly went silent. Rhett could hear a branch snap and crumble in the fire.

“You haven’t heard then, have you?” Wendy asked. “They’re going to bomb LA.”

Everyone began speaking at once. Rhett heard snippets – border guards – fences – You're going  _to_  California? Not  _away_  from there? – death strips – dogs – but he chose to focus on Wendy. “Who is ‘they’?”

“The Air Force. Supposedly there’ve been mutinies out at Edwards, maybe other bases too. No one wants to bomb the place. But they have to. LA’s too sprawling to be contained like San Francisco. They can’t save the state anymore. They have to contain the problem.”   

Worse than the Wild West – martial law – barricaded – out of food, out of water… “How’d you hear about that? There’s been a blackout over the whole state.”

“The internet’s dead on purpose. The army destroyed the servers in LA and Palo Alto,” Wendy said. “Imagine the protests. They want us to know about the operation after the fact, not before.”   

Rhett stared at her. Wendy’s voice was calm, and her eyes were clear. She did not look insane. She looked like a person trying to communicate plain facts to a man about to make a rash decision. But nothing she said could be true. The military couldn’t have purposely destroyed servers. There was no way all the millions of people who lived in LA had been evacuated.

There was no way he could put his trust in campfire conspiracy theories.

"Wendy!"

Two men broke into the circle. Rhett recognized them as the ones who'd found him that morning.

"How are the traps?" she asked.

"Good. But we found signs of zombies near Angels Landing. We might have an infestation."

Wendy sat up straight. She asked for more details: what signs, where, and when.

"Angels Landing is far from our camps..." she said. "It's too dark to hunt now. We'll track them down in the morning. Any other details?"

The man hesitated. "It's dumb, but I thought I heard a harmonica by Echo Canyon?"

Rhett leapt up. "What?"

The others stared.

"My friend has a harmonica," Rhett explained. "We have to go! Tonight!"

"It'd be suicide," Wendy said. "I won't risk sending out a patrol at night. For a group, yes, but not one person. The one thing we have on them is vision. At night, they have all the advantage."

"Then  _I'll_  go."

Wendy scoffed. "How? Angels Landing is miles from here."

Rhett looked from face to face. Some looked away from him. Some stared at him, stony-eyed. No one looked the least bit sympathetic.

But Rhett remembered the concession area. He remembered the screwdriver in his pocket. He remembered, specifically, that _ignition's usually yellow. Battery's always red.._.

Wendy cocked her head. "Come here."

Rhett followed her out of the circle. Once they were out of the firelight, she said, "Look, big guy, I like you. Also," she gave him a crooked smile, "it's not worth it to restrain you. I'd need five guys to take you down. So go ahead, try to find your friend. But take these." She dug into a pocket on her bandolier and pressed two bullets into his hand. "In case you get attacked."

"You think we'll only find two zombies?"

"No," she said. "One for you. One for your friend. Like I said, I like you."

Rhett took the bullets. Other people's fatalism made him defiant. "After I find him, I'll bring him back here."

Wendy’s expression went completely cold. “If you bring him back here wounded, we’ll _know_ a zombie got him. We’ll kill him. I’m not putting the camp in danger for one person.”

She turned away then, and Rhett wondered about the bizarre day he’d just had – this refuge in the middle of nowhere, this mayor of a city of hunters. “What were you before all this?” he asked.

“Does it matter?” she said over her shoulder. “That world doesn’t exist anymore.”

***

Link was having a very bad day.

The zombie who'd chased him in the morning had been hard to shake. After sprinting, Link had darted into a rock formation – a tight crevice formed by two boulders leaning against each other. A thin human could have easily shimmied into the space, but zombies, though fast and ravenous, were not flexible. Link had slipped in seconds before she'd grabbed him – and then lay perfectly still.

She stood snuffling by the entrance for more than an hour. Link saw his saving grace had been her broken ankle: it hobbled her speed a little. An uninjured zombie would have easily outrun him. He tried to calm his rabbiting heart. He tried to hold his breath. He wanted to be completely, deadly still.

Finally the zombie moved on, but Link lay there for an hour more, panicked that she was standing somewhere he couldn't see. 

At last he inched out of the crevice. He saw no zombies anywhere.

But he also had no idea where he was.

For hours Link tried to retrace his steps. In the morning he'd concentrated far more on the zombie behind him than the scenery in front of him. Now nothing looked familiar. When had the woods given way to this red earth canyon, exactly? When had he first seen this creek? Was this the first time he'd seen this clump of yellow flowers, or was it the tenth time he'd passed it?

By mid-afternoon, he knew he was completely lost. He was going to starve to death. No one would know what happened to him.

Then he reminded himself he didn't  _know_  that. He’d only been lost for a few hours, after all.

Luckily he didn't need to worry about water, but he wasn't sure what to do about food. There were plants everywhere. Maybe they were all edible. Maybe he was sitting in a veritable salad bowl. Maybe he would starve to death while surrounded by food he didn't know he could eat. He wondered which was a better way to die: eaten by zombies, or starved to death by stupidity.

Maybe the zombies had horticultural knowledge, and he could be the bacon bits on the world's saddest salad.

In the end he decided not to risk eating foliage. He remembered going on a hike not that long ago with Rhett, who had, of course, insisted on sampling some mushrooms on the trail. Link said there was no way to know if they were edible. Rhett had cheerfully replied, “Really, all mushrooms can be eaten. It’s just that some can only be eaten once.”

Rhett truly believed that most things wouldn’t kill him, most of the time. Meanwhile Link believed everything wanted to kill him. Nothing he’d gone through this week had convinced him otherwise.  

He began walking what he thought was northwest. He had a vague memory of going downhill, so walking uphill felt right. Even if it was wrong a high vantage point might let him survey the area.

Near the top of the hill he was surprised to find a marked hiking trail. He followed it to the highest point.

By now it was late afternoon. Looking out, he could see a long, wide canyon, the rock on either side banded in red and white, all sprinkled with bright green scrub brush. The clouds above were low and golden. If he'd come here after a day of hiking, and not a day of being chased by zombies, he'd say the view was worth the climb.

He sat down on the ground, exhausted, and took out the harmonica from his pocket. It still tasted like marshmallows. He tried playing a melody. "Amazing Grace" was the first to come to mind. Something simple, barely one octave. He figured out the notes. Soon the harmonica's reedy tones echoed through the canyon. 

It sounded sad, and Link stopped.

The view didn't tell him where he was. Only that it was late in the day and he was lost, tired, hungry, separated from his only friend, and in for a night without shelter if he didn't find something fast. He turned back.

Late afternoon turned to dusk, and the light was nearly gone before he found the end of the hiking trail. From there he could see a paved road under a thin canopy of trees, and then what looked like an abandoned outhouse. Its windows were broken and there were cobwebs under the eaves, but it was a far better place to spend a night than on the exposed ground.

As he stepped towards it, he smelled something rotting.

He turned as his pounding heart rushed blood to his head. It was too dark to make out colors now. Everything was black or gray. 

Between the tree trunks, he saw small, twinkling lights. They moved slowly closer. Link stood still as shapes formed around the lights.

They weren't lights. They were the dead, glistening eyeballs of creeping zombies. Link could smell their rotting flesh on the breeze, rank and pungent with a hint of sickening sweetness. There were five, ten – maybe more.

Link stood paralyzed for a moment. Then the horde surged forward.

Link’s paralysis broke instantly: he turned and ran to the nearest tree. Their hungry, dog-like growls were just steps behind, almost an arm’s length away. He grabbed a branch and clambered up as fast as he could.

One grabbed his leg, its nails digging into Link’s jeans. He felt the cloth start to rip. Link reared back and kicked it in the head. The toe of Link’s shoe smashed into the zombie’s rancid, jelly-like eye, squirting black fluid from its collapsed eyeball like a pierced water balloon.

The zombie staggered back, but a dozen moved forward, surrounding the tree's skinny trunk.

It'd been years since Link had climbed a tree, and this was no sturdy oak. It was a scrawny twenty-footer with only one sizable bough. Link worried it'd crack under his weight. Or the zombies might figure out they could stand on each other's shoulders. Or they could simply wait. Even now Link had trouble getting a grip on the frail branches. Eventually he'd slip or just become exhausted and fall. 

He looked over at the outhouse, frantic. It was on the other side of the paved road. The farthest, thinnest branches of Link's tree just barely touched the branches of trees on the other side. If he could somehow get to those trees, he could reach the outhouse roof – and still be surrounded by zombies, but at least with something sturdier beneath him. 

There was no way the outmost branches could hold his weight. He'd have to swing or jump, and even then he might not make it. But he couldn't stay where he was. 

Waiting wouldn't make it better. He had to do it. He had to take a leap of faith. 

He took a deep breath, leaned back, then launched himself at the other side of the road. 

He didn't make it.

Link fell hard on the road, three feet short of his goal, the wind knocked out of him, as a sharp pain stabbed up from his twisted wrist. He rolled onto his back, amazed his glasses had stayed on.

The zombies seemed surprised by his sudden flight, but quickly gathered themselves. This was it. This was the end. Link tucked his knees to his chest, covered his face with his hands, and waited for nails and teeth to rip into his flesh.

Suddenly, he heard a horn blasting like an oncoming train.

Link opened his eyes - and was blinded by a bright light. Someone - not him - was screaming, while a car horn blared at an ear-splitting volume. All the air in front of him filled with thunderous movement as, in one catastrophic instant, an enormous taco truck barreled into the zombies on the road. 

The zombies splattered under its wheels like bugs or ricocheted off its windshield. The horn stopped suddenly, probably broken by all the bodies slamming into the truck’s grille. Before Link had a moment to realize what was happening, the truck's door swung open. 

It was Rhett.

"GET IN!" he said.

Link scrambled inside and slammed the door on a zombie's hand. A few rotten fingers rolled onto the car's floor.

"Where’d you get a taco truck?!" Link asked.

"It's a long story," said Rhett. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I think." Link winced.

"I'm bringing you to camp. There’s a bunch of survivors staying here. This is Zion, man!”

“ _This_ is Zion? ‘Safety’ my ass, I almost died twice!”

Rhett replied, but Link was barely listening. He was dizzy with hunger, and relief, and gratitude – and something else. He looked down.

Something was trickling down his right leg. He touched his calf – he remembered a zombie had torn a hole in his jeans.

His hand came away wet and sticky. He stared at his fingers. They were streaked with blood.

Rhett was watching him. "Is that a scratch? Or did you get bitten?"

"I don't know," Link said, and fainted.


	7. Littlefield, Arizona

_For some, the transformation is almost immediate. For others, it can take up to three hours._

Rhett repeated the newscast in his head.  _Up to three hours_. If Link was infected, how much time did they have?

Link was still passed out cold, exhaustion layered on top of shock. Rhett preferred it that way. It gave him time to think. 

Since Link was wounded, they couldn't stay in Zion. The survivors would kill him once they saw his leg, especially since Rhett couldn't be sure it wasn't a zombie bite. They had to keep going – towards Los Angeles.

As Link slept, Rhett drove out of the Park and onto Interstate 15. They soon crossed state lines out of Utah.  _We should get out and dance, Link_ , he thought, and smiled ruefully.

Even if Link hadn't been bitten, the cut looked deep. He could have an entirely different infection. Maybe it wouldn't turn him into a zombie, but it could easily cost him a leg. Rhett didn't have soap, or clean cloth, or bandages, or even water for the wound. He just had to leave it alone.

After an hour of smooth desert driving, Link woke up.

"Where are we?"

"Arizona. Las Vegas is about ninety minutes away."

Link seemed to take a moment to absorb this. "How did you find me?"

Rhett told him what had happened that day: that he had met survivors, that a patrol had heard Link playing the harmonica, that a nearby concession area still had food trucks, and that Rhett had hot-wired one with a screwdriver just as Zach had told him in Colorado.

In turn, Link told him about his day getting lost and being hunted by zombies. Rhett was silently grateful he hadn't mentioned the dinner he'd had in Zion. Link was going on two days without a full meal.

"Thank you for saving me."

"You're welcome, Link."

There was a pause, then Link said, "I'm going to die, aren't I."

Rhett opened his mouth. Closed it. Breathed out. "Here's what I'm thinking. Next town we see, we stop and find a pharmacy. You need to get that wound dressed. And maybe antibiotics or something. And food."

"If I was bitten, shouldn't you kill me?"

Rhett didn't answer.

Link's voice was slow. "We don't know when I'll turn. Every minute I might be getting closer. We don't have anything to tie me down...nothing I couldn't get out of quickly. So it'd be safer..."

"You might've just fallen on something. That was quite the tumble."

Link shook his head.

"Look, I'm not killing you," Rhett said. He meant to say it in his most final dad voice, but he quavered on the last word.

"But I'd want you to." When Rhett didn't reply, Link turned to look out the window. "I don't feel great, Rhett."

The two lapped seemingly endless miles of desert, the landscape smooth and featureless as the moon, the stars as sharp as knives. Rhett glanced at Link in his rearview mirror. He saw Link was trembling, until he hugged himself firmly to stop it.

Rhett asked, "Did you know oysters can change their gender?"

Link snorted. "What?"

"I was reading about this the other day. All oysters are born male, but they can turn into females later, and then back again."

"Can they only be one gender at a time?"

"You say 'only' like it's not that impressive."

"No, like I know snails are both male and female, so when they mate they both go away pregnant. Or clownfish – like Finding Nemo? They change gender too. Oysters aren't the only game in gender-changing town, is what I'm trying to say."

"What I don't know," Rhett continued, "is whether it's at will, or if it's under special circumstances, like with the clownfish."

"You can't talk about 'willpower' with oysters. They don't make conscious decisions. They're basically sea-going wads of phelgm."

"Hey, oysters are delicious."

"How do oysters even mate? If you're in a shell, how do you even...I don't know, I'm just imagining two shells French-kissing at this point."

"With the oyster as the tongue?"

"How else would it work?" Link started to tug off his jacket. He struggled as one sleeve got caught on his swollen wrist. "You're just trying to distract me from my impending doom."

Rhett glanced at his friend again. The windows were rolled down and the night was cool, but Link was sweating. "You okay?"

"No. Hot. Dizzy."

Rhett cursed the West's wide spaces again. They needed to find a town. 

"Listen, Link...if things don't-"

"No," Link said. "You were right the first time."

"What?"

"Everything I had to say to my wife and kids, I already told them. You too. If this is my last night, I don't want heartfelt confessions and goodbyes. I'd rather talk about oysters."

Rhett saw a green sign approaching. Littlefield, two miles. Would it be a proper town? Would it at least have a pharmacy? They'd need to take the risk. 

Link had shut his eyes tight and was digging his head into the headrest. He seemed to be damming up waves of pain.

Rhett took the offramp. "Hold on just a little longer, brother."

Their taco truck rolled onto Littlefield's main strip. Rhett guessed only a few hundred people lived here in the town's heyday. Now it was completely deserted, like so many of the places they'd passed in Utah. 

They passed by a school, a church, a small grocery, and a post office. That was almost the extent of the town. Rhett was ready to turn back onto the interstate when he saw a sign swinging from a porch – the only bit of movement in this dark, empty town.

His heart leapt when they came closer. The sign showed two snakes entwining a staff, under a pair of wings. It was a tiny medical clinic.

Rhett looked at Link. Link was red and sweating, but also shivering. Rhett remembered how feverish Fiona had been right before she turned. 

"How long has it been?"

"Two hours." If Link was bitten, they didn't have much time left. "I'll be fast."

"I might be changed before you come back." 

Rhett hefted the rifle onto his shoulder.  _Two bullets_. "Remember what we said right after we left Omaha?"

Link exhaled slowly. "You said you'd die for me."

"And you said you'd let me. So don't be a liar, Link."

Rhett slammed the door shut and entered the clinic.

***

After Rhett had left, Link rolled up his pants leg. Blood had congealed on the cloth, making a sort of bandage, so Link had to tug roughly to pull it free. He bit his lip and shut his eyes tight for a moment. He'd accidentally reopened the wound, and a hot wave of pain rushed over him. 

The wound was hot to the touch and throbbing. Link felt feverish. He was also exhausted, but had a feeling if he fell asleep, he wouldn't wake up – not as himself, anyway. 

Maybe music would help him stay awake. The taco truck had a stereo system. Link didn't know if the radio would work, but it was worth a try. He got up and limped towards the truck's kitchen.

The room wasn't in working order.  There were leaves and dirt tracks on the floor. But there was a neatness to the back that Link could appreciate. He saw a single deep fryer tucked next to the sink, and grooves where you could slide a cutting board under the faucet for more counter space. 

The radio was set on a shelf near the ceiling, above the taco truck's service window. Link flipped a switch.

The radio hissed to life at a startling volume. After a second Link realized the speakers were set outside, of course. Music was for the customers' benefit, not for the people in the truck.

He twisted the dial back and forth, but on both AM and FM there was nothing but static or the neverending emergency broadcast. " _A civil emergency message has been issued for the following states: California, Nevada, Oregon_..."

Link listened for new information. " _All airports, seaports, and other means of mass transportation have been shut down. Interstate 5 and the Pacific Coast Highway are shut down in both directions. All residents of Los Angeles County are ordered to evacuate_..."

 _How the hell can they evacuate when all the roads and airports are closed_? Link thought. Then,  _How on earth will we get to them_?

He turned the dial again.

Now, on a different channel, he heard a voice through the static – so faint he could barely understand the words. “… _last seen in Burbank, on the corner of Victory Boulevard and North Hollywood Way. That was when the zombies overtook us. Please, if you have any information_ …”

Burbank. That was very close to Rhett and Link’s company. In fact, the voice sounded not unlike their old intern, Chase Hilt…

Link shut off the radio and slid to the floor. He must not be thinking straight. The pain was so bad now he was nearly nauseated. He took a deep, shuddering breath.

"What was that?"

Link sat up. There was someone outside.

"Sounded like a radio."

"Holy shit, it's a taco truck!"

"Hold on, there might be someone inside..." an older woman's voice said.

Two men, or boys, and a woman. Maybe teenagers and their mom. 

"We can take them, whoever it is," one boy argued. "We need to get to Utah."

Survivors trying to leave Arizona. Link's sweat ran cold. 

He couldn't fight off three people – not at the best of times, and not in this state. He could barely move as it was. But he couldn't let them take the truck. Rhett needed to go to California. They were headed in a different direction. No compromise was possible here. 

Link crawled back to the passenger seat, but stayed on the floor. He needed to do the best acting job of his life.

"There's no one here," one boy said. Link heard him put a hand on the passenger side door.

" _Grrrrrrr_..." Link said. He tried to be as deep and guttural as the zombie who'd chased him away from camp that morning.

He heard the boy step back. "Wha...?"

Link turned his growl into a roar, then, as himself, yelled, "NO! No! Oh God, please, help!"

Link heard screams outside as he slammed himself against the locked door. He began rocking and banging against the walls of the cabin so hard the truck shook, all the while screaming as if the flesh was being ripped from his bones. He raked his nails across the seat and kicked against the door as if being bodily dragged.

Finally he stopped screaming, but kept crashing against the walls, and tried to remember how his dog sounded when enjoying an especially good meal: the same pants, whines, and ravenous slobbering. He hurled himself against the seat like a too-large milkbone being abused.

He heard swearing outside, and then the sound of three pairs of feet running away.

Link collapsed on the floor of the truck. He was pretty sure he'd given himself some new bruises with that show. 

Rhett hadn't even been gone ten minutes.

***

Inside the clinic, Rhett was frantic. 

He was grateful for the full moon. It'd be almost impossible to see inside without it: the electricity was down, and even the water was shut off. Nothing came out of the clinic's faucets. 

There was a reception area and two examination rooms. He opened every cabinet and soon found some first aid supplies, but there were no drugs in the place.

Finally he went into what he thought was a break area: just a small table, two chairs, and a closet. He checked inside the closet, but there was nothing to see but hangers and a few manila folders. Someone had left a cassette tape of  _The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire: Vol II_ on a top shelf. Rhett had a feeling no one had touched that shelf since the eighties.

He was about to shut the closet door when three people crashed in.

"Don't shoot!" one said immediately.

Rhett hadn't even pointed his rifle at him; he was too startled. It was two teenage boys and a woman. 

"Where did you come from?" Rhett asked.

They ignored the question. "There's a zombie in a taco truck outside," the woman said.

Rhett stopped breathing. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, we're sure," one boy said as the others nodded.

"My friend was in that truck."

"I'm sorry," the woman said. "Your friend's dead. He's gone. We barely ran away in time."

The world had ended. 

Rhett had often joked that Link would kill him one day, either by accident or in a straight-up homicide. ("This'll all end in a murder-suicide," Link would say on frustrating shoots. "Just like we always knew it would.") But now Rhett realized he truly believed it: not that Link would kill him, but that Link would outlive him. He had to. All the teasing and bravado hid a truth that Rhett had always known, and had never changed from their first meeting to today: Rhett had always needed Link more than Link needed him.

But here he was, still standing, while Link was – gone? Impossible.

The three were eager to leave. His mind a blur, Rhett told them it might be possible to hotwire other cars in Littlefield, if they could find the right equipment, and there were survivors in Zion just an hour away. They quickly left out the back entrance, after Rhett assured them he'd take care of the zombie in the parking lot.

Rhett took nothing with him. Heart pounding, he went outside.

The lot was still empty except for their taco truck. "Link?" he called.

There was no answer.

Link must still be in the truck. Rhett tried to think of strategy. He couldn't get a good look by opening the driver-side door. If he opened the truck's back door, he'd have a better chance of...

Killing Link. That was what he needed to do. He only had two bullets. He needed a clear view. And killing was necessary: otherwise he was putting his own life and the lives of the three other survivors in danger.

He needed to kill Link. He needed to shoot him in the head.

This was impossible. He would have rather died for Link a thousand times over than be forced to kill him.

 _But he's already dead_ , he told himself.  _He died right after you left. The thing in the truck isn't Link anymore_.

 _Link died. He died alone, hurt, and afraid. You left him to die_. 

Rhett steadied his rifle and put his hand on the truck's door. One clear shot. He wanted to call out Link's name one last time, but knew that was stupid. To get a good shot, he needed to surprise Link. Not Link. The zombie that used to be Link.

Rhett was sweating profusely. He checked the safety on the rifle. 

Finally, he threw the door open.

In less than a second, he saw Link before him, lying down on the truck floor, head pointed towards him. 

And Rhett pulled the trigger.

The recoil slammed hard into his shoulder. He saw blood explode in the truck, like the surface of water after throwing a stone. Blood speckled the metal surfaces of the truck kitchen.

Through the sudden ringing in his ears from the shot, he almost didn't hear Link ask, "What the  _hell_?!"

"Link?!"

Rhett clambered into the truck.

"You just freaking shot me, man!"

Rhett checked Link rapidly. Link was awake. His eyes were clear and blue (and furious). Rhett had shot him, but missed his head. He'd grazed Link's shoulder instead.

Rhett was so relieved his legs gave out. He pulled Link to him.

"You're okay!"

"I won't be, in a s-second." Rhett saw now that the bullet had more than grazed him. It'd left an angry tear through Link's skin. Dark red blood spilled down his arm.

"I found supplies inside."

"Then get them!"

Rhett brought back a roll of bandages and the cloth tape he'd found to the truck. It took a long time, but Link was eventually, if somewhat incompetently, bandaged.

Link wasn't going to turn. Too much time had passed. He was sick and weak, but not with the virus.

"Sorry about this," Rhett said while taping gauze to Link's shoulder.

"I get why you did it," Link said. "You have the worst aim, though. I was three feet away. How did you miss?"

"I didn't want to kill you, man!"

"You're seriously worse than a Stormtrooper. I think I should have the gun now."

Rhett smirked. "Not with this shoulder, you can't."

He wiped Link's damp face with a leftover piece of gauze, then, with a sudden decision, leaned over and kissed Link on his forehead.

Rhett was surprised that Link didn't protest. Instead he sat forward so that his head rested on Rhett's chest. All the fight seemed to have left him. Rhett put his arms around his friend and, for a few minutes, felt the unsteady rise and fall of Link's breathing.

"Just hold on," Rhett said. "We're only an hour away from Vegas."

Link shook his head. "We can't go to Las Vegas. Nevada's under quarantine. Remember what happened in Denver? We'll get stopped at the border."

"What do you want to do then?"

"Arizona shares a border with California. Head further south. Go through Joshua Tree or someplace."

"That'll take hours."

Link shrugged his right shoulder. The left one was wrapped up. "Doesn't matter. Don't want to risk Vegas."

Rhett thought hard. Link needed help. He was injured. He might have broken bones. They didn't even have water, much less alcohol or antibiotics. There was a good chance Link's wounds could get infected. They still needed to get to California, but it'd help no one if they died on the way there. And Las Vegas was only an hour away...

But Link couldn't be convinced. He had veto power over everything, of course. And he could be very stubborn. When every minute counted, the last thing Rhett wanted was a drawn-out argument.

Rhett sighed. "Could you take your glasses off for a second?"

"Why?" Link asked, but took them off anyway.

Rhett didn't answer, though he looked Link in the eyes. There was no fear or distrust in them, even though Rhett had tried to kill him just a few minutes ago. What, exactly, had he done to earn that trust? What would it take to lose it?

 _I’m sorry, but I need you alive,_ Rhett thought. _I’m sorry, but you have to outlive me. That’s why I want to be the one to go, if we had a choice: I don’t want to watch you die. I don’t want to be the one that has to go it alone._

"I'm so, so sorry about this," he said out loud, right before he knocked Link out with the rifle butt. 


	8. Outside Las Vegas

Rhett hit Link right in the temple.

He was worried it'd take more than one blow to take Link down, or that he'd cause a truly terrible concussion, or just end up killing Link – an ironic end when he was trying to save his life. But Link dropped immediately. It'd happened so quickly, Link didn't even have time to look surprised.

Rhett went back into the clinic for a few things. He took cushions from the reception area: he didn't want to tire himself out by strapping Link into the passenger's seat, so Link had to stay where he'd fallen in the back of the truck. Rhett figured he might as well make it more comfortable.

As he shifted Link's dead weight to lie flat on his back, he reflected that Link had plenty of reasons to stop trusting him. " _Do you even care what I say, or are you going to just do whatever you want and force me along with you_?" Link had asked him way back in Colorado. Link's suspicions had been correct: Rhett had ignored his judgment many times already. But Rhett was a practical person. He could manage Link being angry at him. He could even manage Link leaving him. (For a while. Link always came back.) What he couldn't manage was Link dying. Rhett would happily lose Link's trust if it meant saving his life.

Then they were back on the interstate. In a few minutes, he passed by the famous "Welcome to Nevada" sign. A lone miner against a technicolor sunset. Nevada state line, Clark County line.  _Even more zombies than Utah. It only gets worse from here._

The cold, clear desert night seemed endless. Far from any town, he could see stars burning bright above. Mars and Venus were shining in the west. Or maybe that was Saturn. Or maybe they weren't planets at all. He could barely remember his constellations, much less how to tell a star from a planet.

He remembered summer nights in his family’s backyard, years ago, lying down in the grass and talking about nothing. One night when they were ten he convinced Link there was an extra constellation called “The Flying Squirrel.” It was a squirrel with wings, right by Hercules. Its Latin name was “Boreas Sciurus.” He didn’t realize how seriously Link had taken him until four years later, when Link pointed out the fake constellation while trying to impress a girl he liked. (The fake “fact” hadn’t spoiled the moment, but Rhett’s laughter did.) 

 _You’d think Link would know better by now_ , he thought.

About half an hour later, he saw a flash of light near the horizon. For a moment he guessed it was a trick of the eye, or a passing plane, but then he caught it again. Faraway headlights. The lights were going north and south, instead of east to west like the interstate. Some other car was patrolling the desert.

It was the first car Rhett had seen this whole night. Cars meant humans. Humans meant help. Rhett stepped on the accelerator - but the truck slowed down.

He stepped harder. Nothing happened. He checked the console rapidly. Was the tank empty? No, it was just barely above E. The headlights were still on. But he became aware of a clicking sound that, in all probability, had been ticking along the whole time. His ears still rang from the rifle shot less than an hour ago. Little sounds were easy to overlook when he wasn't expecting them.

Rhett was no mechanic, but he could already guess what was wrong. He'd messed with the starter wire to get the truck moving. Now it was failing on him – just when they were a few miles away from help.

The truck continued to slow down. For all purposes, the engine was dead. Rhett could only steer the truck as it coasted down the gritty highway. There was a slight incline – not even a hill, a wheelchair could have gone up it – but it was enough to cut the truck's speed.

Rhett could still see lights in the distance. They might belong to an ATV; they seemed too high to be a regular car. They weren't far now, but they were moving away from Rhett. Rhett cranked the truck into park. 

He hadn't brought Link to be abandoned in the middle of the desert. He couldn't restart the truck. The horn had been broken back in Zion. He couldn't run to the other car, and every second they moved a little further away. How could he get their attention? 

If the headlights were still on, the battery wasn't gone. The car still had electricity.

Rhett remembered the tape deck.

He'd swiped the cassette tape from the medical clinic. He'd remembered what Link had told him after they left Denver – that he missed music. He thought this could be a surprise. 

It still was a surprise, he guessed.

Rhett scrambled to the truck's service window and turned the dial on the stereo as far as it would go. He slammed the cassette into the deck and hit play.

The outside speakers blared as horns and bass dropped into the desert night like a mallet hitting a drum.

" _Dance_!" Earth, Wind  & Fire commanded. The disco beat echoed off the dry hills.

The lights in the distance stopped, hesitated, and swept towards him. 

Rhett saw now it was a Hummer with searchlights mounted to its ceiling. He also realized he had no way of knowing if he was calling over a friend or an enemy. Were these people hunters? Military? Passerby?

" _All the love in the world can't be gone_ ," the band assured him. 

As the Hummer came closer, Rhett got out of the truck and waved them down. It was too late for caution now.   

***

Link's head was pounding.

He was aware of pain first, low and throbbing. Pain in his shoulder, pain in his leg, pain in his left wrist, and most of all pain on the side of his head. 

The pain was bad, but it was also distant – muffled, as if he was hearing it from a faraway room. He tried to bring a finger to his temple to test the bruise, but something tugged at the back of his hand.

He opened his eyes slowly.

There was an IV catheter on the back of his right hand. He tried to turn his head, and saw a clear, near-empty IV bag fed the line to the catheter.

He tried moving his left arm, and found he couldn't. His shoulder was heavily bandaged, his wrist was in a soft cast, and his whole arm was immobilized in a sling. But he wasn't covered in blood anymore. In fact, he was the cleanest he'd been in days. Someone had taken serious care of him. 

He could feel that he was in a cot, and see that it was daytime, but his glasses were missing. He couldn't make out much else. Then he remembered why he'd removed his glasses in the first place. Rhett had asked him to. Right before knocking him out.

"Good morning."

Link made out a fuzzy, woman-shaped blur to his right. "Hi," he said. 

"How are you feeling?"

"Uh...fine." It was hard to think. Link suspected he was on a lot of painkillers. 

"Good." Link heard his IV pole being rattled. "You were really dehydrated when you came in. You lost a lot of blood."

"That's...not so bad."

"You also have lacerations in your leg and shoulder, and a concussion. But your wrist is only sprained, not broken. Someone did a number on you."

"Where am I?"

"Outside Las Vegas," she said. "Nellis Air Force Base."

So they'd gone to Nevada after all. Of course. Why did he ever expect Rhett would listen to him? "Wasn't there someone with me?" he asked. "A tall guy with a beard?"

Another, older woman – maybe a doctor? – tapped on the nurse’s shoulder and whispered. The nurse nodded and quickly moved the roller clamps on the IV’s tubes. Link couldn’t see, but he could hear a sudden flurry of activity around him: people moving and talking, carts being pushed, the clank of instruments being sorted into trays.  

“I’m sorry, sir,” the doctor said. “We need this bed.”

“Why?” he asked, as the nurse peeled the dressing off his hand and pulled out the catheter. Link sat up. He had guessed he was in some sort of field hospital, but wouldn't an air force base have an actual medical facility? In an actual building? And where was Rhett?

“We just got word. New arrivals from the Coliseum.”

“From the Coli…”

Link didn’t even bother finishing his own sentence. He stood up.

“Wait, sir, your things–”

The nurse gave him a plastic bag. Link was wearing unfamiliar clothes (donations, maybe; he tried not to think about the staff here washing and dressing him), but his own clothes were safe in the bag. They were grimy with blood, sweat, and dirt. He found his glasses in his jeans pocket. Rhett must've slipped them in there while Link was unconscious.

Link left the medical tent. 

Immediately he had to raise a hand against the bright sunlight and the swirl of commotion all around him. Dust sprayed towards his legs, kicked up by thundering helicopter blades. Someone was shouting. “We have a code red over here!” And everywhere there were _people_ – uniformed airmen, medical staff, and most of all civilians. Injured civilians. Dazed, dirty, with blank stares and blood on their clothes. Some were alone. Some held hands with others. Some burst into tears. The airmen were leading them away from the helicopter and towards the tent.    

Link glanced at the crowd, saw no one familiar, and grabbed one woman by the arm. She stared at him, startled.

“Excuse me! You came from the Coliseum? From LA?”

“Yes.”

“I’m looking for my family–” He described them quickly, but she shook her head.

“No. No one would know them. It was carnage. It was a bloodbath.”

Adrenaline rushed to Link’s head. “The Coliseum?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you only arriving now? The order was days ago."

“The stadium was breached,” she said. “We were trapped there to be eaten. They couldn’t defend us. We’re the only ones who made it out.”

“But…” Link looked at the weeping, staggering survivors. There were only a few dozen – not even a hundred. “But there are so few of you…”

“Sir!” an airman interrupted. “We’ve got a lot of injured people here. You need to clear the area. Move along.”

“Are these the only people from the Coliseum?” Link demanded.

The airman looked angry – but then, seeing Link’s condition, seemed to understand why he was asking. His face softened. “Yes,” he said, then, “I’m sorry. You need to go.”

Link moved back, but he looked at everyone who left the helicopter. He knew none of them.

He tried to remember his conversation with Christy so long ago. She had said the Army had told her to evacuate, but had she promised to go?

Had he  _made_  her promise to go?

He couldn't remember; the words had left him, and he was weak and fuzzy with painkillers. Even after everyone had moved to the medical tent, he still lingered, as if waiting could make another helicopter materialize. As if waiting could change the universe’s “no” to a “yes.”

Finally, he had to turn away.

He numbly tried to regain his bearings. Maybe his family had gone to the Coliseum. Maybe they hadn’t. If they hadn’t, there was a chance…still a chance…that they’d gone elsewhere. But where? Where was he supposed to look?

He didn’t know. He wandered away from the medical tent just to be moving. 

He could see tan hills to the west with blue shadows in their folds. Here, however, the ground was ruler flat. Link could see already that the air force base was massive. It must extend for acres. To his right were huge hangars for the planes, and more buildings beyond. To his left, however, there were neat white rows of tents, and military vehicles going down the rows. The base had become another refugee camp. 

The camp was beginning to stir. Link saw airmen on patrol, or traveling briskly towards the hangars. He saw civilians – or at least, people not in uniform – walking between the tents, hanging laundry up to dry, or hauling water in buckets and canisters. No one paid him any attention. Link noticed quite a few were bandaged or bruised like him.

A small crowd had gathered at the end of one row. Link came closer, and saw that airmen were unloading bags from a truck and distributing them to the crowd. The line was orderly, but grim. No one was smiling or even talking to each other.

Someone brushed against Link in a hurry to reach the line, sending a shot of pain down Link's shoulder. Link involuntarily gasped.

"Sorry!" the man said. But instead of hurrying along, the man stopped. He looked at Link. His eyes widened. "Is that – Link?"

Link finally looked the man in the eyes. " _Chase_?"

The same floppy brown hair, the same puppy dog eyes, the same stubble – it was Chase, in every detail.

"Holy crap!" Chase wrapped Link in a sudden hug. "I thought you were in Chicago!"

Link wasn't close to his employees; he believed in maintaining a certain professional distance. But he had always had...not really affection, but a sort of exasperated fondness for their intern-turned-production-assistant Chase. Chase was as laid back as Link was high-strung. Easy to pick on, easy to forgive, and impossible to annoy – that was Chase. But now Link's heart leapt up with more than just recognition of a familiar face. If Chase was here, then surely others–

"Aah! Watch the arm, man!"

"Oh, sorry. Sorry." Chase stepped back. His eyes took in everything – the bandages, the cast, the sling, the bruise by Link's eye. "What happened to you? Did you get in a fight with a zombie?"

"Oh. No. I fell out of a tree. And then Rhett shot me."

Chase seemed to consider this. "Yeah. That sounds about right." 

"Look, I'm happy to see you, man. But I'm here to find my family. Have you heard anything? Or is anyone else here from LA?"

"Yeah, there are Angelenos here, but I don’t know about your family…I mean, I don't even know where you live."

When Link told him the neighborhood, Chase's face fell. It'd been bad there, he explained. But then, it'd been bad everywhere. Nellis was full of Californians; someone else might know something. “We run missing persons reports on the base radio all the time. They can hear it over in Vegas. That’s where most of the refugees are.”

“I heard you last night!” Link remembered now. He wasn’t hallucinating after all. “Why aren’t you in Las Vegas, if that’s where everyone is?”  

Chase hesitated. “You…uh…you don’t want to go to Vegas, if you can help it. It’s way overcrowded. It’s more like a ghetto now.” He stepped towards the truck. "Are you hungry? This is breakfast."

On one hand, Link wanted to continue searching immediately. On the other hand, he was ready to collapse from hunger. He hadn't had a full meal since the cabin in Colorado. "Yeah, okay."

Breakfast turned out to be MREs. "They're not very good," Chase apologized, but Link couldn't care less. The show had given him a few very specialized skills. Choking down barely edible food was one of them.

Chase had a specific spot he liked to go to. A high chain link fence bordered the camp. There was one panel where the bottom curled up, like a seat. They used the fence as a chair. Chase opened the MREs and filled the heater bags with water. He didn't have to read the directions, Link noted. He was an expert now.

"How did you get here?" Chase asked as the meals heated up.

"We drove."

"How was that?"

Link thought about the trip, and felt tired before he even explained it. "Could've been worse, I guess. We met some fans."

"Were they happy to meet you?"

"Well. I stole their car afterwards. So maybe not." Link looked at Chase. "How did  _you_  get here? Is anyone with you?"

"No. It's just me. I'm the only one that made it."

Link felt a tingle at the back of his neck. "What do you mean?"

"The only one from work, I mean. Everyone else is dead or missing."

"I...wh...what?"

"Oh. Sorry. I guess you're just hearing about it now. I've been dealing with it for three weeks."

Chase summarized his journey to Nellis without inflection, as if talking about a trip he'd taken to the grocery store. A week after the outbreak started, Chase was convinced he needed to evacuate. Some people went east, risking a trip over the San Bernardino Mountains. Some people went west, hoping to meet the Coast Guard in the bay. Chase did neither. He decided to go to Downtown LA. He figured he didn't have the strength or the wherewithal for an overland journey, and the coast was too far away – but downtown was close, and if he could make it to a high-rise with a heliport, he could be air lifted to safety by a search and rescue team. That was, in fact, what happened, but he had to fight zombies every step of the way, even in the skyscraper itself. He had killed a few zombies. He'd seen people get eaten. "The Fashion District's just littered with bodies," he said, opening the entree packages. The cooked MREs steamed lightly.

He'd kept in touch with some co-workers, at least until the phones had stopped working. All of them had either died or stopped responding to him. They definitely hadn't made it to Nellis. 

"A week ago – people were being told to go to the Coliseum at USC," Link said. “My family was supposed to go. But I just met the people who got out, and they weren’t with them.”

“Oh yeah. That order was a joke.”

 _The order’s a joke_. Link remembered suddenly: that was exactly what Christy had said to him. She hadn’t wanted to evacuate, or didn’t believe it was possible. Had she tried anyway? Had she gone elsewhere? 

Chase was watching him closely. "Hey…not everyone obeyed the order. I heard..." He stopped.

"What did you hear?"

"I don't know. It's just rumors. I don't want to, like, give you false hope..." Link glared at him. Chase continued. "I heard that some people didn't go to the Coliseum. They thought they’d be sitting ducks there. They went to the Santa Monica Pier instead, and made it to Catalina Island. They were the last big group of evacuees to make it. The Santa Monica survivors. But I'm not even sure they exist." He looked at Link. "It's freaking me out that you're not eating."

Link mechanically opened his MRE. He barely tasted it. If his family had gone to the Coliseum, they were almost surely dead. But if they had made it to Catalina...

"Where's Rhett?" Chase asked. "Is he okay?"

"I don't know. I woke up here without him. I don't know where he went."

"Yeah...last night was weird. I heard a patrol found some random guy in a taco truck blasting 'Boogie Wonderland.'"

Link started. "That's Rhett!"

Chase looked confused. "Rhett likes disco?"

"I don't remember disco, but the truck's definitely ours!"

"Where'd you get a taco truck? I thought you said you stole a car."

"Oh, that thing didn't even last eight hours. We blew it up in Utah." 

Chase raised his eyebrows.

Link said, "Look, it's been an eventful four days."

Apparently the disco taco truck had become the talk of the camp last night. The driver had been arrested for some reason, but – "I've made friends here," Chase said. "You should talk to the admins first, about finding your family. But if Rhett's detained, I think I know where they're keeping him. I could hook you up."

Link was deeply grateful for the day they'd chosen to hire Chase. Even if Chase left dirty dishes in the office kitchen. "Lead the way!"

***

"I've told you everything I know."

The interrogator sighed and drummed his fingers on the table. He was young – maybe thirty years old – and had treated Rhett with simple, slightly bored courtesy at first. But they were in their second hour of questioning now, and the interrogator's patience seemed to be running thin. "I think it's a shame you won't cooperate with us."

"I am cooperating. I just have nothing left to tell you."

The interrogator frowned.

Rhett had spent a hard night. He admitted it was suspicious, riding in with an injured, unconscious man in the back of his truck, so Rhett had given his full name to the people in the Hummer. He wanted to show he had nothing to hide. Maybe that was a mistake.

It turned out the Hummer was like a police car, with a grate separating the front and backseats. He had kept his focus on Link, but he could hear conversation in the front: 

 _“_ _Where are we going to put him? The guardhouse’s full.”_

_“Hangar 8, I guess. With everyone else.”_

_“He’s a civilian. We can’t keep him with ‘everyone else.’”_

The other man said nothing.

 _“We should just shoot them all,”_ the first continued. _“Why not? Do you want Nellis to be another Edwards?”_

 _“I just want to do my job, man,”_ the other had said, and that was all they said till they reached the base.

When they’d arrived, Rhett caught only a glimpse of fences and floodlights before the guards led Rhett deep into the base and inside an immense hangar. 

It had been late at night and hard to see, but even so he could make out that the hangar was vast, easily ten stories high and longer than a football field. The ground was filled with metal cages. Metal cages filled with people.

For one horrified second Rhett thought they were captive zombies, but then he realized they were regular, healthy humans, most in jumpsuits, some in T-shirts, nearly all asleep. Why were they being kept here?

Why was the guardhouse ‘full’?

Rhett noticed one small, tanned airman in a dark uniform. The man turned his head when he saw Rhett, but the guards pulled Rhett in a different direction. 

Rhett was taken outside the hangar and into what seemed to be a holding pen, sixty by sixty feet, surrounded by a solid sheet metal fence gone red with rust. They told him to wait there.

 _They probably think I'm a flight risk_ , Rhett thought. Which was completely justifiable. He was. 

As soon as the night was over, he'd been hauled into questioning. A long, unproductive hour of questioning.

"We know your name. We know you were trafficking zombies into Colorado," the interrogator said. "One of them killed officers at a checkpoint outside Denver."

"I already told you what really happened. I'm not a trafficker."

"But you've killed zombies."

Rhett thought of Fiona, of the zombies shot and set on fire in Utah, and others he'd mowed down in Zion. "A few."

"Yet you say you're not a hunter."

"I never sought out zombies to kill. I was only defending myself or my friend."

"Hunting zombies is illegal in Nevada."

"I know. You've said that before." The interrogator had even given him a full explanation: the governor had signed an emergency bill, since Nevada had discovered allowing the killing of zombies also resulted in the killing of people mistaken for zombies. Hunters were trigger-happy menaces, apparently.

The interrogator scribbled on a sheet of paper. “Where did you stay in Utah?”

“We were in Zion National Park.”

The interrogator stopped scribbling. “You were in _Zion_?”

“Yes…” Rhett remembered now. Both Wendy and the men in the Hummer had mentioned Edwards Air Force Base. “What happened at Edwards?”

“What do you know about Edwards?”

“Absolutely nothing. That’s why I’m asking.”

Rhett knew he’d said the wrong thing. The interrogator frowned at him. “Edwards,” he said, “is why you’re sleeping on the ground.”

More fruitless questions were asked – Rhett had to tell everything he knew about Zion – and finally he was brought outside to the pen again. The day was bright. Rhett sat on the ground.

The fence was too high to climb, and straight, solid metal offered no footholds anyway. But Rhett saw that rust had created a few long, thin cracks, not even as wide as a finger. If he looked through the cracks, he could see the flat desert, speckled with scrub brush and sunbleached rocks.

He wondered how Link was.

The interview had been irritating, but Rhett didn't really mind. There was very little left for him to care about. Link was safe. They were closer to California than they’d ever been. This wasn't even the first time he'd been detained. Granted, escaping a little checkpoint outside Denver was different from escaping a full military base. But Rhett had always had more faith than Link, by choice as well as character. He still believed that somehow he and Link would make it to California. One of them would find a way. 

Someone, or something, knocked softly on the outside of the sheet metal. 

For a second Rhett thought it might be an animal, but when it repeated he went to the corner, where the knock seemed to come from, and knocked back.

"Hello?" a voice asked.

"Link?"

"Yeah!"

"Are you okay?" Rhett asked. "I'm alone – come over to where I can see you."

Rhett looked through the crack. He could only see Link in glimpses, but he made out a sling. Bandages. Different clothes. 

"How did you find me?"

"Chase helped."

"What – Chase? As in our intern Chase?"

Rhett barely believed it even as Link explained. He also didn’t believe that Link had forgiven him that quickly. Probably they’d deal with it later. There was just no time for remonstrances right now. 

"But that's not the important thing," Link said. "Look, we might not have much time, so I'll be fast. I've been asking around the base, talking to the admins. They keep a registry of everyone in the official camps. Our families aren't listed, not here or any of the other camps. Of course, that doesn't include places like Zion or people sheltering in private homes or what...it's a big mess. They might be safe somewhere and undocumented, and it'd be impossible for us to know. But: Chase said people from our neighborhoods escaped to Catalina."

"Catalina," Rhett repeated.

"We need to go there," Link said. "It's our best bet, if we want to see our kids again."

Through the crack, Rhett could glimpse Link's eyes. For once – for the first time since the outbreak – they were filled with cautious hope. Journey almost over. Reunion in sight.

Rhett's heart was breaking.

"Link, there's something I need to tell you."

"Someone's coming-"

"My family's dead," Rhett said.

Link's eyes snapped back to him. "What?"

"Jessie and the kids. They're all dead. I've known this whole time. I've known since a week before we left Chicago."

The hope in Link's eyes had turned to horror. " _What_?" he said again, but in a whisper.

Rhett heard the sound of boots crunching against sand. "Hey!" a voice called.

Link looked to his left. "Oh shi-" he started, but never finished. He took off running.

Rhett leaned his back against the fence. The metal was skin-warm from the sun. He shut his eyes.

There was very little left for him to care about.

He did not fear for his family. He knew, without a doubt, that he was going to see them again. They were waiting for him on the other side. He had no proof of this, but he knew. 

He did not fear because there was nothing left to be afraid of. The worst had already happened.  

Whoever had been chasing Link had stopped. Rhett heard boots stop just outside the fence, and something – a hand, maybe – press against the metal. He heard breathing.

Rhett opened his eyes and looked through the crack. He recognized the face – a face he’d left behind in Colorado, and never expected to see again.

“ _Vasquez_?”


	9. The Santa Monica Survivors

To the west of Las Vegas were the Spring Mountains. The range extended all the way south to the California border. The October sky was clear, and Link could see the mountains as gentle, dusky blue curves on the horizon. He and Rhett had thought about camping there once. With their families.

Now –  _now_  – it all made sense. Rhett's more-than-usual recklessness. His hesitation that night in Zion. His insistence on protecting Link, which was annoying as hell but also understandable...now that Link was the only family he had left here. Throughout their whole journey, Rhett had never, not once, mentioned his own family. He hadn't talked about meeting or saving them. " _If you thought of your kids_..." Rhett had said back in Colorado. "Your" kids. Not "our" kids.

The only thing that didn't make sense was how Rhett had kept it secret for so long. Link remembered that when he'd gone to Rhett’s hotel room the day they decided to leave, he thought Rhett had died. By then Rhett had been living with his family's deaths for a week. Every day he'd been alone and drinking, and Link hadn't helped him. How could he? He didn't know. Rhett had told him nothing.

Link tried to understand this. It was easy to forget, given the nature of their jobs and Link's own privileged position, that Rhett was a private person. Rhett gave off the impression of being willing to tell anyone anything, but really his deepest convictions were kept strictly to himself and two other people. Link could understand hiding something so devastating for a while. But Rhett had said something different two nights ago -- that telling Link wouldn't do him any good. 

Link could only guess about Rhett, but he knew himself. He was an anxious person. Knowing Rhett's family had died would have distracted him with grief and fear, just when it was essential to be level-headed. Rhett had probably guessed this too.

Link tried to imagine the strength, and the foolishness, necessary to make that choice. To keep the heaviest burden of your life to yourself, so your friend would concentrate on the journey, and not on you. So your friend wouldn't go mad with the fear that what had happened to you could happen to him.

Doing that would take strength. And love. And incredible, breathtaking stupidity. 

Link thought of Jessie, and the children he’d known their whole lives – and found he couldn’t. He couldn’t hold their deaths in his mind. It was impossible. He couldn’t grieve for them because he couldn’t believe they were gone.

Still their mission remained the same. Link's family might still be alive. He still needed to find them. 

Someone had spotted him when he was outside the hangar. Link had run, but when he looked back no one was there. Either he'd escaped easily, or the person had decided not to follow him. Now Link walked slowly back to the main part of the camp.

Chase was waiting for him by a gatepost. "How's Rhett?"

"Bad," Link said.

"Worse than you?"

"Way worse." Link thought of saying more, but if Rhett hadn't told his best friend, he probably didn't want his former employee to know. He decided to change the subject. "How can we get to California?"

"You can't," Chase said.

"There has to be a way. If people get out, there must be a way in."

"There's no way you'll get out of the camp without guards noticing. You can leave, but only under escort. Besides, every road west's blocked."

Link squinted at the distant mountains. "What if we didn't drive?" he asked. "I mean, we are on an Air Force Base..."

"Dude, that's nuts."

Chase was right. It was nuts. He was also right that driving sounded impossible, however. Link filed that away. "How do you pass the time here?"

Chase seemed relieved that conversation had passed to safer topics. "I help out at the radio station a lot," Chase said. "You said you heard me last night? It's a weak signal, but it's a way to get information out. That’s why they haven’t sent me to Vegas yet – because I had radio experience."

Link remembered Chase’s resume. “You _don’t_ have radio experience.”

“Shhh,” Chase said. “They don’t know that.” He looked at Link. “Do you want to check it out? We could record a segment for the missing persons program. For your kids.”

Link didn’t want to stay still. He wanted to find a way out of the base. But Chase was being kind, and he didn’t have a better idea yet. “Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.”

Nellis was vast. It turned out they had a long walk to the radio station, which was on the other side of the base. It also turned out – when they arrived – that the “radio station” was a tiny room, barely more than a closet, with a desk, a computer, and one chair. That was all.

Chase plopped down into the seat and turned on the computer. Link stayed standing. It seemed to take Chase a long time to boot up the program.

“What do you want to say? I like to give some background on people. Like, ‘This is my old boss, Link Neal! You might know him from…’”

Link winced. “No one needs my resume. It’s not about me.”

“Okay. Then just like names, ages, hair color…Oh. Oh, shit."

"What?"

"I think we're broadcasting already."

Link was deeply annoyed. It was because of things like this that Link's fondness for Chase had always been colored with exasperation. "Then shut it off, man. We'll try again."

"I-"

The door opened. Chase quickly shut down his program. 

Link blinked.

“Vasquez?” he asked.

The man grinned. He had dark skin, dark hair, and an olive green jumpsuit. “Yes. And no. Did you know you were broadcasting, Mr. Neal?” 

“We just realized it,” Chase said. He looked from one to the other. “Do you guys…know each other?”

“He’s met my brother.”

Link remembered now: Vasquez had mentioned having a brother in the Air Force. This wasn’t Vasquez after all – or at least, not the one they’d met at the checkpoint, though there was a strong family resemblance. The man could've been his twin.

“I saw your friend in Hangar 8,” Vasquez – this Vasquez – said to Link. “My brother told me about you guys. I owe you one for saving him.”

The saving of Vasquez’s brother’s life had been far more incidental than intentional, but Link definitely wasn’t going to set that record straight.

“Asked your friend what he wanted,” he continued, “and he told me to look out for you. So this is me, looking out for you." He looked at them both. “You’re going to Las Vegas. The next transport.”

"What? What if we don't want to go to Vegas?" Chase asked.

"Trust me," Vasquez said. "You won't want to be here in a few hours."

“Why?”

Vasquez explained.

The story was complicated. It involved mutinies and conspiracies. But all Link heard was _opportunity_.

Maybe most people had evacuated Los Angeles, but with all roads closed hundreds of thousands were still stuck there, waiting for rescue. Rescue that would never come. The military needed to stop the zombie outbreak. They needed to bomb the place. If the public knew, there'd be an outcry straight to DC - and so, the media blackout. With cell towers and internet down, if you did the operation quickly enough, the rest of the country would only learn after the fact. 

Unless you were in one of the few places in California or Nevada that still had internet access. Unless you had a channel that was watched by millions. Unless you could get the news out before the bombs dropped...

Link had an idea.

When he explained it, Vasquez seemed interested, but Chase balked.

"I don't even work for you anymore, and you're asking me to commit treason?"

"It's not really treason. It's more like...sabotage."

"Oh! That's okay then."

Link wondered why Chase drew a hard line at treason, but then, as with so many things about Chase, he decided to just let it go. "What do you think?" he asked Vasquez.

"Fuck it, I'll try anything," he said.

"Okay," Link said. "But if we do this, I need a favor. Like a really, really big favor."

***

Rhett was beginning to think everyone had forgotten about him when a guard came to his holding pen. “Some space freed up for you at the camp,” the guard said.

So he wasn’t free to go yet. Rhett wondered when he should bring up habeas corpus. Or if it even applied now.

The guard took him out of the pen and into the hangar again. It took a moment for Rhett’s eyes to adjust from the bright sunlight to the dimness within. As they passed the cages, Rhett thought the prisoners seemed remarkably quiet. No one was napping or resting; everyone was awake, but still. Many were watching the entrance.  

It was almost as if they were waiting for something.

A resounding BOOM suddenly echoed from the hangar’s entrance. It sounded like an explosion.

“What the–?” the guard asked, just as the hangar’s enormous door suddenly collapsed.

Airmen flooded in and immediately started breaking into the cages, cutting wires, breaking locks. The prisoners were freed.

Rhett found himself in the middle of a riot. Staff tangled with the invading airmen, prisoners poured out of cages, and the clanking of chain link fences rang out over raised voices and continued explosions.

It was easy to separate from his guard in the whirlwind, but there was no way he’d make it to the entrance. He ran back to the holding pen – and stopped as he saw a shadow spreading on the ground.

The air echoed with the roar of a propeller coming down, closer and closer, until the sound was deafening.

Rhett brought up a hand to shield his eyes from the flying dust as a small helicopter descended into the yard. It landed on the ground just a few yards away from Rhett.

Rhett was not even surprised when he saw Link in the helicopter's door. He laughed out loud.

With the sounds of ongoing mutiny masked by the thundering rotor blades, Rhett climbed inside the helicopter. It immediately took off again.

He looked down once as the base grew smaller behind them. Airmen were pouring out of the hangar. He couldn't make it out through the smoke rising above, but there seemed to be a skirmish taking place.

He turned back to Link.

"I know you'd break me out," Rhett said.

Link didn't seem to recognize the humor there. He was staring at Rhett with eyes of flint. "You...jackass."

Rhett quickly searched back for the most recent thing he'd done wrong. "Oh. I'm sorry for knocking you ou-"

"No, shut up," Link said. "For once in your goddamn life you're going to listen to me. We've been friends our whole lives. You were the best man at my wedding. You're the godfather to all my children. I would trust you with my fucking  _life_. So what made you think I wouldn't do anything for you?" His anger was suddenly tinged with sadness. "We're partners. Anything that happens, I want to share it with you. Understood?"

"Yes."

"Good. If you'd said no I would've thrown you out the door." Link stood up and placed a hand on the pilot's seat.

Rhett looked at him now. It was the elder Vasquez brother.

"We're going to Catalina,” Link said.

"We'll  _try_  to go to Catalina," Vasquez corrected. "No promises."

"I’m…going to need a little context here,” Rhett said.

Link explained. There were plans from high up to bomb LA, but Air Force commanders had disagreed with the orders. In the last few days large-scale mutinies had risen up at Edwards and Nellis. Many personnel were imprisoned.

Vasquez interrupted. "I just want to be clear – because the Air Force's my life – it's not an easy decision. We're against the order because it's stupid. Zombies are dangerous, but they're also  _actively rotting_. Evacuate everyone, keep the borders secure, and in a few weeks they'll die off. No need for collateral damage. The whole operation's been incompetent from start to finish..." It seemed like he could have said much more, but he stopped himself there.

A final mutiny had just broken out at Nellis. Vasquez had wanted to evacuate Link and Chase to Las Vegas before it started. Chase was on the transport to Vegas now, in fact…carrying the plans to bomb LA, which Vasquez had helped leak. Chase was going to get the information to the press.

"How, exactly?"

"I didn't tell him how to do it," Link said. "I just told him it needed to be done."

Rhett smiled, then grinned. "Atta boy."

And in the meantime, Link finished, Vasquez was doing them a favor for saving his brother.

"Not just that,” Vasquez said. “I've spent weeks listening to survivors who lost their families. I couldn't help them, but I can help you guys. Besides," he said, "I'm gonna get court-martialled anyway. Figured I might as well deserve it."

Vasquez was Rhett's kind of guy.

The helicopter flew southwest, towards the California border.

The flight took almost three hours. Rhett could see the woodland and canyons of the Mojave Desert as they passed, and the long, dry stretch of the San Bernardino Valley, and even Big  Bear Lake in the mountains below. 

Finally they flew over the San Gabriel Mountains. Rhett’s breath caught in his throat. The LA skyline was in view.

He never thought he’d be fond of that sight. It always amused him, actually, how every LA establishing shot showed only the few dozen skyscrapers downtown. An earthquake-prone basin wasn’t a great place for tall buildings. But now he looked at the U.S. Bank Tower and the Aon Center like they were old friends. The city was clear of smog, for once – he could see everything in detail.  

It seemed to take ages, but they descended as they came closer to the city. Rhett looked down as familiar neighborhoods sprawled out before them.

Link reached out to grab Rhett's arm. Rhett understood why.

He had never seen the freeways so empty. He could make out the Santa Monica Freeway snaking through Boyle Heights. Usually it was packed. Now it was littered only with smashed, overturned cars...and bodies.

On every street and interstate Rhett could make out, it looked like a riot or an invading army had passed through. No one was in the streets. Even from this height he could make out the glitter of broken windows, the stillness of empty, abandoned buildings, and the hundreds of bodies on the ground. It was like the aftermath of war. 

Everywhere it was still. No cars moved. No lights were on. All of LA seemed to be deserted. 

Rhett caught a flicker of movement downtown. Were there survivors after all? He leaned to get a better look – then recoiled.

There were zombies in the streets. Thousands of them.

From this high up, their movement reminded him of a flock of starlings: a pulsating, abstract wave of black dots. They were roaming the streets in hordes, hunting for prey. 

"How did anyone survive this?" Link asked.

Rhett took hold of Link's shoulder – the good one – and squeezed. 

"We never should have waited."

"We didn't know," Rhett said, but Link wasn't listening to him.

"We failed. We left our families to–"

Suddenly the whole helicopter shuddered. Rhett and Link were almost knocked off balance. The deafening whir of the helicopter's blades quieted. 

"Aw, shit," Vasquez said.

"What was that?!" Link asked.

"That," Vasquez said, "was a .50 cal sniper bullet to the rotor. Got a Twin Huey behind us."

Rhett craned his neck to look behind them. He could gather that "Twin Huey" was a kind of military helicopter – since that was exactly what was behind them, maybe three hundred yards away.

"They're trying to kill us?" Rhett asked.

"Nah. If they wanted me dead, they would've taken down the helicopter. This is more like a bouncer telling you it's time to go home." Vasquez glanced at them. "Party's over, guys. I can still land."

To Rhett this sounded reasonable, but Link said, "No."

Vasquez looked at them both over his shoulder. "'No?' Dude. If I don't land, they  _will_  kill us." 

Link stood up. His hands were trembling, but his voice was hard. "We've traveled two thousand miles to get here. We've lied, and stolen, and killed, and almost died. I did not come this far to give up now."

Rhett said, "Uh. Just for the record, we didn't kill anything that wasn't already dead."

"We killed a rabbit."

Rhett rolled his eyes. "Oh, right. You and your inability to distinguish animals from humans."

"You're an ass, Rhett."

Vasquez turned to him. "And you? You want to die with your friend?"

Rhett did not think Link was thinking with his head. But Link could be very stubborn, and Rhett was not going to force him. Not again.

"I go where he goes," Rhett said.

Vasquez shook his head and said nothing for a few moments. Then he shrugged. "I could angle the helicopter to land in the water, maybe, and parachute out, and if you guys are strong swimmers...No. Forget it. Ninety percent, you'll die."

"I'll take those odds," Link said. "If my kids are still alive, I need to find them. I need to know."

The helicopter’s rotor made an ungodly groan. They were running out of time.

“You know what? Your funeral,” Vasquez said.

The Pacific Ocean was in view. Vasquez carefully nudged the helicopter's nose to point towards the bay – then got up.

Vasquez suited up within seconds. As he buckled the last strap, he turned to them one last time.

“Thanks for bringing us this far,” Rhett said.

“Try not to die,” Vasquez said, “or it’ll be on my conscience.”

He jumped out of the helicopter. Rhett saw him deploy his parachute almost immediately. The Twin Huey behind them followed where he went. Rhett realized they probably had no idea Vasquez had passengers. Wherever Rhett and Link landed, no rescue team was coming for them.

He had to admit: of all the scary experiences in his life, being in a helicopter without a pilot was definitely in the top five.

He sat down hard in the back. Link was already there. He seemed to be just comprehending the reality of what he’d chosen.

The helicopter hurtled downwards at a racing speed. The horizon loomed closer and closer – more and more ocean, less and less sky. Minutes to impact.

Rhett had imagined death frequently over the last two weeks. It was odd, how the one certainty in life seemed so remote until it was there, in front of you – until you were moments away from fire or drowning or a terrible collision. There was never enough time. There could never be enough.

But his friend was here, at least.  

Link was gripping his own pants leg with white knuckles. "What now?" he asked.

Rhett said, "I think now is when we pray." 

His heart was beating too fast. But when he saw Link's eyes were full of fear, he took a deep, steadying breath. His heart slowed.

If this was the end of the world, he didn’t want fear to be the last thing he felt. He wouldn’t be afraid of the apocalypse. He wouldn’t hide or run away. He would embrace it like a friend.

A calm came over him like the eye of a hurricane. Link reached out and took Rhett's hand. Rhett gripped it firmly.

As he prayed out loud, he saw Link shut his eyes tight, seeming to concentrate on the words, but Rhett kept his eyes open. He wanted to see everything before the end. 

 _The sky is so blue. The sun is so bright. The ocean is so beautiful. So immensely, immeasurably beautiful_.

Link was gripping his hand so tightly Rhett could feel his heartbeat. He heard Link whisper a shaky, "Amen."

The ocean disappeared, and all Rhett could see was sky.

 _The world is so_ -

***

Link's world exploded.

The helicopter crashed into the ocean. The sound and force of it was bone-shattering, the water like a solid wall. The helicopter kept hurtling down, down, into the blue-green bay, until it collided with the ocean floor. Link was slammed against the helicopter roof by the impact.  

Link was overwhelmed by the sudden, watery silence. For a second he couldn't tell which way was up. Water was all around him.

Then, quickly, he remembered: he kicked out of the helicopter's open door.

He tried to swim, but couldn’t move his left shoulder. He couldn’t move at all. He began to panic. Then he felt Rhett grab his wrist, and tug him upwards.

Link's lungs were on fire. He didn't know how deep they had gone – how much longer they had until –

They broke to the surface. Link couldn’t see through the saltwater stinging his eyes, but he felt Rhett drag him onto what felt like a flimsy boat, almost tipped over by two men crawling over its side.

Link gasped and coughed. He wiped water from his eyes. He swiveled around. And he had one full second to comprehend three things:

One: they were at the marina. Rhett had pulled him onto a rowboat at the very end of the dock. If the helicopter had landed just ten feet sooner, they would've crashed into the pier instead of the water. They would have been bloody meat chunks in a burning wreck.

Two: the view was blurry. Link's glasses had fallen off, of course. They were lost somewhere in the ocean.

Three: as far as his eyes could see, from the beach to the end of the marina, the place was full of zombies.

" _Shit_ ," Link said as Rhett lunged for the dock lines.

The zombies seemed to have been alerted by the spectacular crash. Hundreds of them stampeded towards the pier.

As Rhett untied the lines, Link grabbed one of the boat's oars. Outboard motor. Orange storage box under one seat. That was all he had time to notice before the zombies were on them.

Some tumbled off the dock by the sheer mass of zombies pressing behind them. One stretched towards the boat. Link hit it with the flat side of the oar, knocking it into the water. Another came – then another –

"A little help here!"

"I'm trying!" Rhett said. He untied the last line, then went for the motor. He pulled the cord. Nothing.

The zombies were shrieking like howler monkeys. One zombie fell into the water, but clung to the side of the boat. Link swung the oar at it; it grabbed the handle. Its grip was unbreakable. Link let go.

The zombie crawled into the boat, jaws snapping. Rhett was still struggling with the motor. 

Link thought fast.

From being on boats before, he knew a flare gun case when he saw one. He kicked open the storage box. Inside: a bright orange twelve-gauge flare gun. 

Link snatched up the gun. He turned.

The zombie lunged towards him.

Link held up the flare gun to its head, and fired.

He shut his eyes as rotting brain matter splattered over the boat, then, disgusted, kicked the bleeding remains off into the water. He picked up the oar again.

The zombies were still coming. One was clinging to the back of the boat.

"I think I've got it-" Rhett said, just as Link rammed the zombie's head underwater with the oar's blade. Rhett pulled the cord.

The water sloshed red as the propeller cut into zombie flesh. The motor stopped – and so did Link's heart – but then choked and started again at full throttle. 

Link collapsed on the boat floor. On the pier, zombies leaped and howled, mad with hunger and frustration, as Rhett sped the boat away from the marina. 

"How..." Link began. "...How the hell did we survive that?"

Rhett glanced at him. Link expected some smart aleck reply, but now there was nothing on Rhett's face but grim concentration. "Okay, Link, serious question. Which way to Catalina?"

Link was so tired he couldn't think straight. But he had to. There was no time to even talk about the fact they’d survived a helicopter crash. He forced himself up into a sitting position. "What do you see?" 

"A lot of other boats. A lighthouse. Buildings on the right, like a museum? Or an aquarium? I'm sorry, man, I know Catalina's off the coast, but I don't know where it is exactly."

 _Fantastic. One of us is blind, and one of us doesn't know where we're going_.

Link knew Santa Catalina Island was about twenty miles southwest of Long Beach. He tried to remember what the shoreline had looked like just before they crashed. If he remembered the shape of it correctly, he was pretty sure they'd just left the Port of Los Angeles. He had to trust memory; his vision was too blurry to make out landmarks now. 

But Catalina wasn't visible from Long Beach, at least not until they were further into San Pedro Bay. They would need to go into the open ocean.

If Link was wrong about where they were – if they were in a different harbor, at a different beach – they would go completely off course. If they were lucky, they could either turn back or land on one of the other Channel islands. If they were unlucky, they'd die in the open water.

He looked back at the marina they just left and tried to hold a mental map steady in his mind. Then he decided. "You need to go that way." He pointed southwest.

"Are you sure?"

"...Mostly."

Rhett hesitated with his hand on the tiller. "Okay," he said. "I trust you."

The boat chugged away from the docks and towards the horizon line. The motor did not sound healthy, but that was unsurprising, given all the corpse-chopping it'd just finished.

As they went south they passed (what Link assumed was) Point Fermin Park on their right, and finally were in the open sea. Link could make out nothing but blue sky and blue water, but Rhett said he saw black smudges along the horizon – islands – one small, one large. This sounded like Catalina to Link. 

The waves grew choppier as their little boat cut further into the bay. Link could hear the motor whine as Rhett kept a firm hand on the tiller.

Link gripped the edges of the boat. Neither of them spoke. Link was counting waves, counting feet, counting inches – every minute, another step closer to Catalina. The marina grew blurry behind them as even Link started to make out the islands in the distance. 

The motor began to sputter. 

"What's that?" he asked.

“Something wrong–”

The motor slowed, churning the water, and suddenly stopped. The boat rocked with the waves. Rhett turned around, leaned over, and tilted the motor up and out of the water.

Link stared.

“Well, there’s your problem,” Rhett said.

One propeller blade had simply broken off, while the others were cracked and twisted – the clear result of cutting into bone earlier that day. Rhett groped around the propeller.

“Something fell off,” Rhett said. “There’s supposed to be a pin right here – see the grooves? But there’s…not.”  

“Okay,” Link said. He already knew there were no tools or replacement parts in the boat. There was nothing at all, except the oars and the empty flare gun kit. He fought down rising panic. “Okay. How do we fix it?”

“Well…” Rhett said. “Usually this is where we’d call the marine equivalent of triple-A. But I have a sneaking suspicion they’re not in business right now.”

“So what, we’re stranded?”

"Of course not. We have oars."

Rhett picked up both and slid them into the oarlocks. Link got up, but Rhett shook his head.

"No, you can't. Not with one hand."

Link wanted to protest, but he saw Rhett was right. Even if he was uninjured, the boat was too narrow for two rowers to sit side-by-side. He could only watch.

Rhett settled into position and started to scull. His strokes were slow but steady. He knew what he was doing.

It was hard to estimate where they were, but Link guessed they had nine or ten miles left to go. They seemed to be a bit more than halfway between the port and Catalina.

Watching Rhett was painful, mainly because Link could do nothing to help. He watched the oars mechanically dip and drive through the water, and felt the minutes pass.

The sun was baking hot, and Link's clothes started to dry though his cast remained waterlogged. He was surprised all his bandages had stayed in place. Now, however – now that both the drugs and the adrenaline were starting to wear off – he could feel sharp fissures of pain crackle up from his leg and shoulder, deep and searing.

It didn't matter. He could live with it. After all, he was staying still while Rhett was fighting against the waves.

The minutes passed – ten minutes, twenty minutes – and Rhett's pace was unrelenting. Until about half an hour had passed. Link saw Rhett start to weaken. His grip on the oars loosened. His strokes didn't plunge in quite as deep.

It was a bit like watching someone die.

Finally – after almost an hour of rowing – Rhett finished one strong stroke, trembled, and slid the oars down from their locks. He didn't collapse. He shifted, laid down on the floor of the boat, and covered his eyes with one arm.

"I'm done," he said.

Link understood. He wouldn't ask him to give any more. Rhett had already given everything.

They floated in silence for a while. Link became aware of the squawking of seagulls, the cold ocean breeze, the slap of water against the hull of their boat. Birds. Wind. Water. Things that felt eternal now.

The boat bobbed up and down with every wave. A current was pulling them slowly but steadily south, away from Catalina. Even if it was possible to signal for help, Link had already spent the single-shot flare gun more than an hour ago.

"Maybe..." Rhett said. "Maybe...you could swim it."

Link considered the distance. They were still half a mile from the shore. He wasn't sure he could swim that far on his best day. Could he do it with one arm in a cast, after two days of fasting, with a system full of painkillers that were steadily wearing off? 

"I think you consistently overestimate my abilities, dawg."

"I think you consistently underrate yourself," Rhett said. His words were slow. "I think you could be president if you wanted."  

"Do you want to be vice president?"

"No. Vice president doesn't get to do anything. I want to be Secretary of the Interior."

"That is...very specific."

"It's the perfect post. All the national parks are mine. Maybe I can do something good for the environment while I'm there. And no one cares who the Secretary of the Interior is! I can do whatever I want!"

Link laughed. Then, halfway through, his laugh turned into a sob. 

Rhett opened his eyes slowly. "Hey...It's going to be okay."

"How can you say that?" Link asked. Then, "How can  _you_  say that?"

Rhett didn't answer for a long time. The boat swayed, rocking back and forth like a cradle.

Link asked, quietly, “How did you find out?”

“I…” Rhett began. There was a long pause. Then he shut his eyes again tightly. “No. Sorry. I can’t.” 

Link did not ask again.

Birds. Wind. Water. Things that would continue after they were gone. Things that would last so much longer than their little boat in this enormous ocean.

"I've been thanking God," Rhett said finally.

To thank God, at this moment, when they'd lost everything and were stranded in the Pacific, was so absurd to Link that he almost wanted to laugh. "They...they died, Rhett."

"And before that, they lived. Why wouldn't I thank God for that?" he asked. He looked up at the sky. "I've been thinking...even if I die today, this was a pretty great life. I found love. Raised a family. Had an amazing career. And I had a best friend through all of it. Most people don't get even half of that. I know my family's waiting for me. I'll see them soon."

"Soon?"

"Well,” Rhett said. “I had no intention of actually surviving this trip."

Link had wondered how Rhett had maintained his composure during this whole trip. Now it made sense. Rhett was capable of great focus when he needed it, and he'd had two things to focus on. He had their destination. And he had Link. The king of compartmentalization had reached the end of his reign.

Link stood up on unsteady feet. The boat was still being pulled southward. 

He knew sharks lived in Santa Monica Bay, including Great Whites. Sometimes swimmers got attacked. He knew sharks liked the warm water in summer; he didn't know if they were still around in October.

_I swear to God, if I get eaten by a shark before I reach this island, I am going to punch St. Peter in the face._

The boat was rocking, and Link's knees were weak. He looked down at the waves. 

He didn't trust the water. He didn't really believe that it would hold him.

But he trusted Rhett.

"You think I can do it?" he asked. 

Rhett smiled. "Absolutely."

Link took a deep breath. "Okay. That's all I needed."

He stepped onto the edge of the boat, held his breath, and dove in.

The water was shockingly cold. It was a cold that stabbed all the way down to his heart, violent and sudden, penetrating through bone and marrow.

He broke to the surface, and gasped.

He had to use an eggbeater kick to tread water without hands. He was already tired – saltwater stung his eyes – and Catalina was a huge black blur in front of him.

But he'd learned what wouldn't work from his first time in the water. He couldn't move his left shoulder. The breast and the butterfly stroke were out. He adjusted himself to float on his left side, perpendicular to the ocean floor, and used his right arm for a front crawl.

He began to slice through the water.

Within minutes his right shoulder started to burn, but he couldn't alternate.

 _Don't think of the end. Don't think of how far you have to go. Just think of the next stroke. The next. And the next_...

His toes started to go numb from the cold. Fine. He could lose his toes. They didn’t matter.

When concentrating on each stroke became too much, he concentrated on individual movements.  _Catch the water. Prepare for the pull. Push through._..

He tried to glimpse at the island every time he took a breath, but he could barely see over the waterline. He had to have faith he was headed in the right direction.

His muscles wanted him to stop.  _No. You're not allowed to. Body, you are not allowed to fail on me_.

The burning ache in his limbs became a tortured scream as the minutes passed, but he kept going. He felt as if his body didn't even belong to him anymore. It was just a vehicle he needed to ride till it collapsed.

 _The next stroke. And the next. And the next_ -

Link suddenly hit into a branch of kelp. At first he was enraged – he was already at his limit, and now he had to fight against this too? – but then he realized: kelp lived by the shore. He was nearing a beach.

Link flailed as more and more kelp blocked his path. It was almost impossible to have a clean downstroke now. Every time, his hand and arm and legs became tangled in wet, heavy seaweed.

He rolled over to float on his back, panting, and then continued, fighting against kelp and water and exhaustion with every move.

The water around him grew warmer. He glanced up, and saw a town in front of him.

His feet touched ground.

Link dragged himself a few more feet and then collapsed on the sand. Every part of him screamed in pain, but he hardly cared.

He was here. He had made it. 

He heard people running in the sand above him, coming closer. Someone grabbed his shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

Link couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman. He was in too much pain. "I - I have a friend. He was in a boat-”

"We saw," the stranger said. "We'll send a boat out to him. We'll get him."

Link shut his eyes. He was ready to pass out.

"Dad?"

Link's eyes flew open. He pulled himself up, and turned.

He couldn't actually see anything in front of him. He couldn't make out faces, or more than the outlines of a town above the beach.

But it didn't matter. He would have recognized that voice anywhere.

In a second three bodies collided into him, knocking him onto his back again. He looked at them. His daughter. Both his sons. Lando was holding onto his waist; Lily had both arms around his neck, and was weeping into his chest. All of them were crying and holding him as if he was about to be swept off in a hurricane.

Sudden, shattering relief flooded over Link as he gathered his children in his arms. They were alive. They were safe. He was never going to let them go. 

As he embraced them, he slowly realized..."Kids? Where's Mom?"

None of them answered. He pulled back slightly. "Lily? Where's your mom?"

She only sobbed harder and clung tighter. And then he knew. 

He didn't need to be told. He knew.


	10. Raleigh

Link didn't see Rhett for more than a year. 

They stayed in Catalina for three more days until the Coast Guard evacuated them and the other survivors back to Nellis. They became refugees again. They learned what had happened: after the plans had leaked, public outcry stopped any orders to bomb LA. All of Link's memories of this time were fuzzy. He had his children to care for, and a thousand things to decide, and a loss like a heavy blanket that had settled on his shoulders, muffling noise and deadening everything.

But as he recalled he and Rhett were sitting at a table - what passed for a table, a plank of wood over stacked cinderblocks – late one night. He was talking about what to do next. He assumed Rhett would go with him.

But Rhett didn't seem to be listening, and stretched out, and said, "I think I'll stay here for a while."

Link looked at his friend then, as he hadn't since they went to Catalina. Rhett looked tired - exhausted. Sharp wrinkles creased around his eyes. He had lost weight during their expedition. They both had. Link was used to Rhett being the stronger one. He'd never seen him look so...old.

"And do what?" Link asked.

"Don't know."

Link had objections – many of them – but he never voiced them to Rhett. He understood without needing to be told. Rhett needed to be alone. Maybe for a long time. Maybe even forever.

The day they separated, Link gave him a parting hug and asked, "Let me know where you go?"

"If I can, I will," Rhett said. He turned away, but Link interrupted.

"Just do me a favor. Stay alive. Please."

Rhett waved goodbye to him, back turned. No reply. No promises.

Link and his family moved back to North Carolina.

He wanted to be as far from the west coast as possible. He wanted to be close to his in-laws. He wanted familiarity. And there was truly nothing tying him to Los Angeles anymore.

He bought a house in Raleigh. His and Rhett's company was destroyed, of course, but between savings and insurance payouts he didn't technically need to work for a while. 

The house had four bedrooms. For the first two months, they only really needed one. His children always ended up in his bed. They had nightmares about California. He had nightmares about them dying. Staying together, and reassuring each other they were still alive, alive, was the only way anyone could sleep.

He started seeing a therapist.

After a while it became clear that, money aside, he needed the routine of work. He wanted safe. He wanted boring. He wanted health insurance, mainly, for the kids. So he became a creative director for a marketing firm.

He hated it – but it was a dull, almost pleasant sort of hatred, like wearing scratchy wool on a cold day. The irritation distracted him from worse things. After being his own boss for well over a decade, it was hard to have to concede to a higher-up's opinion. Especially when the opinion was stupid. But it was a relief as well, knowing none of these decisions depended on him. The success of the company didn't depend on him. Nothing depended on him – except his family, and they were all he cared about.

He didn't read the news. He knew the virus was successfully contained now. He knew there was a huge controversy about how to resettle the survivors. Right after he moved, there were rumors that _he_ was responsible for the plans leaking, since their social media was one of the first places it appeared – but as he pointed out, his phone had been stolen earlier. Anyone could have hacked into his account. The rumors died quickly. He stayed away from it all.

A year passed. 

After a year his in-laws began to ask if maybe – not immediately, not even this year if he didn't want to, but maybe – he would think about dating again?

To Link the suggestion was almost obscene. He changed the subject. But reflecting on it later, alone in the bedroom where he couldn't sleep, he realized they had a point. He was everything to his children now. He had no back-up, no support, no one to rely on at a moment's notice. 

And he was lonely. He hated to admit it, but – he missed having long, deep conversations. He missed being physically close to another person. He had never been this alone before. 

A month later: he chose not to use any dating apps, and instead just disappointed two separate women, one at his church, and one at his daughter's school. He noticed how the conversation's tone changed after he mentioned how he'd become a widower. They became sorry for him. They reached out for his hand and told him it must have been so, so hard. And he thought,  _I fought off zombies with a crowbar on the top of a flaming Camry. I don't need pity_. 

This was an uncharitable thought, but he had it anyway. What they told him – after he let them down – was exactly right: "No one can know what you've gone through. Especially when you won't talk about it. It's like you don't want to let anyone new in."

Link stopped dating after that. 

In the meantime, he had long lost track of Rhett. In the first few months Rhett sent short emails about where he was: Nevada for a while, then Arizona, then suddenly to Oregon and Washington. Link sent back long replies full of questions and reports on how his family was doing. Rhett never responded. After a while Rhett stopped contacting him altogether. 

Oddly, Link never worried about him. He'd always assumed that he and Rhett would somehow die at the same time. They would stop at the same instant, as if they shared a heart. Therefore if he was alive, Rhett must still be alive, silent though he might be. Sometimes separations are necessary. Sometimes you need to move to the east coast to raise your children, and your friend needs to stay on the west coast to help refugees and exact a terrible vengeance on the zombies that killed his family. You know. It happens.

One day in March, more than a year after the zombie virus had razed California, an unfamiliar car parked outside Link's house.

It was one of the first nice spring days of the year: not rainy, not cold, with big puffy clouds in a bright sky. Link's older son was in the front yard pulling weeds – punishment for mouthing off at school – while Link kept an eye on him from the living room. 

When Link glanced up from the contract he was highlighting, he noticed his son had stopped weeding. Instead he was kneeling on the lawn, watching the parked car.

Suddenly his son sprang up, screaming, and ran.

Link raced over and pulled open the front door. He was just in time to see his son leap into Rhett's arms. 

Rhett hugged the boy tightly. He seemed to be breathing him in for a moment. Then he chucked him up, carrying him up the driveway, and spotted Link at the door.

They considered each other for a moment. Rhett was leaner than before. Any softness had been swapped out for bone and muscle. His skin looked rough and tan, and there was a network of new scars across one arm.

"You changed your hair," Rhett said.

"Really?" Link said. "That's the first thing you're going to say to me?"

"Oh, sorry. Hello. You have a lovely house, Mr. Neal."

"Hi, Rhett," Link said, and opened the door wide. "Welcome home."

 


End file.
